⚠ Unofficial · Not affiliated with LLNL or Spack · spack.io →
HPC Package Manager Training

Master Spack.
Without a cluster.

Interactive terminal simulator for Spack — the standard package manager for scientific HPC software. Practice real builds, environments, and deployments directly in your browser.

user@login-01 — spack-cluster
user@login-01:~$ spack install openmpi +pmix fabrics=ucx
[+] Installing ucx-1.16.0 (concretized)
[+] Installing openmpi-5.0.3-gcc-12.3.0
==> Building openmpi [CMakeBuilder]
user@login-01:~$ spack env create hpc-stack
==> Created environment hpc-stack
user@login-01:~$ spack env activate -p hpc-stack
[hpc-stack] user@login-01:~$
[hpc-stack] user@login-01:~$
9,000+
Packages Available
18
Guided Lessons
51
Build Errors Documented
100%
Browser-based

Everything to manage
real HPC software stacks

Spack is the standard package manager for scientific computing. Practice the full workflow — from first install to production deployment — without touching a real cluster.

Real Terminal Feel

Type actual Spack commands and get realistic output — build phases, dependency resolution, concretization, and real error messages with explanations.

🌏

Environments

Create reproducible spack.yaml stacks. Add packages, concretize, install — the full environment workflow used on production HPC clusters.

🪄

yaml Wizard

Pick from 160+ HPC packages, choose MPI/compiler/GPU, and get a spack 1.x-compatible environment file with the right variants already set.

🔴

Build Error Catalog

51 documented build failures — UCX_NOT_FOUND, OOM_KILLED, HYPRE_ABI_MISMATCH, concretizer conflicts — with real error output and fixes.

📦

Buildcache & Deployment

Create binary caches, use E4S mirrors, and deploy the same environment across multiple cluster nodes. Essential for production HPC.

🛠

Cluster Guide

10-step guide for taking Spack to a real cluster — upstreams, Lmod modules, SLURM integration, air-gapped installs, binary mirrors.

The complete Spack toolkit

Install
  • spack install
  • spack spec
  • spack concretize
  • spack fetch
Environments
  • spack env create
  • spack env activate
  • spack add
  • spack find
Config
  • spack compiler find
  • spack external find
  • spack config get
  • spack config edit
Deploy
  • spack buildcache
  • spack mirror
  • spack gc
  • spack module

Look up any package

Search from 9000+ packages. Try: openfoam, petsc, py-numpy, gromacs