README.md
March 17, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

General schematic of the steps in the workflow
Contents
- Quick Start
- Introduction
- Installation
- Usage
- Parameters
- Resource Managers
- Output
- Troubleshooting
- Contributions and Support
- Citations
Quick Start: Test
Run the built-in test set to confirm all parts are working as-expected. It will also download all dependencies to make subsequent runs much faster.
Pull workflow from GitHub
nextflow pull bacterial-genomics/wf-ani -r main
Run test workflow
nextflow run \
bacterial-genomics/wf-ani \
-r main \
-profile <docker|singularity>,test
--outdir results
Quick Start: Run
Example command on FastAs in "new-fasta-dir" data using BLAST (ANIb) with singularity:
Run workflow
nextflow run \
bacterial-genomics/wf-ani \
-r main \
-profile docker \
--input new-fasta-dir \
--outdir my-results \
--ani blast
Introduction
This workflow performs average nucleotide identity on assembled and/or annotated files (FastA/Genbank).
Installation
- Nextflow
>=22.04.03 - Docker or Singularity
>=3.8.0 - Conda is currently unsupported
Usage
nextflow run main.nf -profile <docker|singularity> --input <input directory> --outdir <directory for results> --ani <blast|fastani|skani>
Please see the usage documentation for further information on using this workflow.
Parameters
Note the "--" long name arguments (e.g., --help, --input, --outdir) are generally specific to this workflow's options, whereas "-" long name options (e.g., -help, -latest, -profile) are general nextflow options.
These are the most pertinent options for this workflow:
Required parameters
============================================
Input/Output
============================================
--input Path to input data directory containing FastA/Genbank assemblies or samplesheet.
Recognized extensions are: {fa,fas,fsa,fna,fasta,gb,gbk,gbf,gbff} with optional gzip compression.
--query Path to input data FastA/Genbank file or samplesheet.
Recognized extensions are: {fa,fas,fsa,fna,fasta,gb,gbk,gbf,gbff} with optional gzip compression.
--refdir Path to reference panel data directory containing FastA/Genbank assemblies or samplesheet.
Recognized extensions are: {fa,fas,fsa,fna,fasta,gb,gbk,gbf,gbff} with optional gzip compression.
--outdir The output directory where the results will be saved.
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Container platforms
============================================
-profile singularity Use Singularity images to run the workflow.
Will pull and convert Docker images from Dockerhub if not locally available.
-profile docker Use Docker images to run the workflow.
Will pull images from Dockerhub if not locally available.
============================================
Optional ANI tools
============================================
--ani Specify what algorithm should be used to compare input files.
Recognized arguments are: blast, fastani, skani. [Default: blast]
Additional parameters
View help menu of all workflow options:
nextflow run \
bacterial-genomics/wf-ani \
-r main \
--help \
--show_hidden_params
Resource Managers
The most well-tested and supported is a Univa Grid Engine (UGE) job scheduler with Singularity for dependency handling.
- UGE/SGE
- Additional tips for UGE processing are here.
- No Scheduler
- It has also been confirmed to work on desktop and laptop environments without a job scheduler using Docker with more tips here.
Output
Please see the output documentation for a table of all outputs created by this workflow.
Troubleshooting
Q: It failed, how do I find out what went wrong?
A: View file contents in the <outdir>/pipeline_info directory.
Contributions and Support
If you would like to contribute to this pipeline, please see the contributing guidelines.
Citations
An extensive list of references for the tools used by the pipeline can be found in the CITATIONS.md file.