[kandrosov]

Summary

The StatInference part of the multi-era change set. With cms-flaf/FLAF#347, FLAF tasks take --era (a one-era tuple for now) and refuse period in every form, so the tasks here move to the new parameter:

• the requirements on FLAF tasks pass era=(e,);
• get_sub_periods becomes get_sub_eras;
• Setup(…, self.era[0], …);
• the HistPlotter call passes --era.

The meta-era logic (meta_era, the card eras) is unchanged. Converting the card stages to several eras per task is a later step.

Changes

• law/StatInferenceTask.py, CreateDatacardsTask.py, PreprocessShapesTask.py, ResonantLimitsTask.py, ResonantLimitsAndHistPlotTask.py, MergedHists.py: the rename.
• .github/copilot-instructions.md: the era facts.

The rename-check job (the other A PRs had it too) is not part of this PR. Its script reaches FLAF main only with cms-flaf/FLAF#347, and a follow-up PR adds the job then. Run locally at e1392d7: python3 FLAF/run_tools/check_era_rename.py --repo StatInference gives rc 0.

Merge after cms-flaf/FLAF#347 and before the analyses, which then point their StatInference gitlinks at the merged SHA. StatInference has no docs site; the change is described in .github/copilot-instructions.md.

Testing

• This code first runs in the integration pipelines' HH_bbWW multi-era job (ResonantLimitsAndHistPlotTask, CI card config over Run3_2022–2023BPix) with every companion. The task turns HistPlotter and Setup errors into warnings, so that job's logs are searched for WARNING: shape plotting failed, Warning: no var_list and Traceback, and its datacards, limits and plots are checked to be present: on both backends (GitLab job 84465115 in https://gitlab.cern.ch/cms-flaf/flaf_integration/-/pipelines/16078964, GitHub Actions job 117581533118 in https://github.com/cms-flaf/FLAF/actions/runs/39089883382), the job ran ResonantLimitsAndHistPlotTask --version CI --era Run3_2022 --test 1000, and the card built datacards for Run3_2022, Run3_2022EE, Run3_2023 and Run3_2023BPix.
  • Result: 53 tasks scheduled, 40 ran successfully (5 CombineDatacards, 8 CreateDatacardsTask, 10 CreateWorkspace, 5 MergeResonantLimits, 10 ResonantLimits), no failed tasks.
  • The datacards and workspaces exist, and five expected-limit medians are printed.
  • None of the swallowed-warning signatures appears.
  • The shape-plot step writes no PDF (no shapes to plot for TwoStageDNN_M300_binary, 4 times), exactly as on main (GitHub Actions run 39033435835, before this change). That is pre-existing and not changed here.
• black 26.10.0 passes on the changed files.
• Gate: REVIEWER OK (flaf-reviewer, e1392d7). run_ci_test.sh does not run StatInference; the integration pipelines above stand in for the tester verdict.

[kandrosov]

tested with cms-flaf/FLAF#347