Summary

This PR adds an initial unit test suite for core Python utilities in concore.py.
The goal is to establish a testing baseline so future changes can be made with more confidence and easier verification.

What’s included

• Added a tests/ directory with a basic pytest setup
• Added 10 unit tests covering:
  • safe_literal_eval() for file reading and parsing
  • tryparam() for parameter handling
  • ZeroMQ port class behavior
  • Default configuration values
  • Public API sanity checks
• Added pytest.ini for consistent test configuration
• Added requirements-dev.txt for development and testing dependencies
• Updated .gitignore to exclude pytest cache and test artifacts

Testing

All tests pass locally when running pytest.