Define where the pipeline should find input data and save output data.

Path to the sample sheet (CSV) containing metadata about the experimental samples.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+\.csv$

Provide the full path to a comma-separated sample sheet with 4 columns and a header row. This file is required to run the pipeline. See the nf-core/rnaseq sample sheet documentation for example format.

The output directory where the results will be saved. You have to use absolute paths to storage on Cloud infrastructure.

type: string

Email address for completion summary.

type: string
pattern: ^([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)\.([a-zA-Z]{2,5})$

Provide your email address to receive a summary report when the workflow completes. If set in your user config file (~/.nextflow/config), you don't need to specify this for each run.

MultiQC report title. Printed as page header, used for filename if not otherwise specified.

type: string

Reference genome related files and options required for the workflow.

Name of iGenomes reference.

type: string
pattern: ^[a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+$

If using a reference genome configured with iGenomes (not recommended), provide the ID for the reference (e.g., --genome GRCh38). This builds paths for all required reference files. See the nf-core documentation for details.

Path to FASTA genome file.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+\.fn?a(sta)?(\.gz)?$

This parameter is mandatory if --genome is not specified. If you don't have the appropriate alignment index, it will be generated automatically. Use with --save_reference to store the index for future runs.

Path to GTF annotation file.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+\.gtf(\.gz)?$

This parameter is mandatory if --genome is not specified.

Path to GFF3 annotation file.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+\.gff(\.gz)?$

This parameter must be specified if neither --genome nor --gtf is provided.

Path to BED file containing gene intervals. This will be created from the GTF file if not specified.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+\.bed(\.gz)?$

Path to FASTA transcriptome file.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+\.fn?a(sta)?(\.gz)?$

FASTA file to concatenate to genome FASTA file e.g. containing spike-in sequences.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+\.fn?a(sta)?(\.gz)?$

If provided, sequences in this file will be concatenated to the genome FASTA file. A GTF file will be automatically created using these sequences, and alignment indices will be created from the combined files. Use --save_reference to reuse these indices in future runs.

Splice sites file required for HISAT2.

type: string

Path to directory or tar.gz archive for pre-built STAR index.

type: string

Path to directory or tar.gz archive for pre-built HISAT2 index.

type: string

Path to directory or tar.gz archive for pre-built RSEM index.

type: string

Path to directory or tar.gz archive for pre-built Salmon index.

type: string

Path to directory or tar.gz archive for pre-built Kallisto index.

type: string

Minimum memory required to use splice sites and exons in the HiSAT2 index build process.

type: string
default: 200.GB
pattern: ^\d+(\.\d+)?\.?\s*(K|M|G|T)?B$

HiSAT2 requires significant RAM to build genome indices for large genomes with splice sites and exons (human genome typically needs 200GB). If you provide less memory than this threshold, splice sites and exons will be ignored, reducing memory requirements. For small genomes, set a lower value; for larger genomes, provide more memory.

Specify if your GTF annotation is in GENCODE format.

type: boolean

If your GTF file is in GENCODE format and you want to run Salmon (using --pseudo_aligner salmon), enable this parameter to build the Salmon index correctly.

By default, the pipeline uses the gene_name field to obtain additional gene identifiers from the input GTF file when running Salmon.

type: string
default: gene_name

Modify this parameter to change which attributes are extracted from the GTF file when running Salmon. You can specify multiple values separated by commas (e.g., --gtf_extra_attributes gene_id,transcript_id).

Define the attribute type used to group features in the GTF file when running Salmon.

type: string
default: gene_id

The attribute type used to group feature types in the GTF file when generating the biotype plot with featureCounts.

type: string
default: gene_biotype

By default, the pipeline assigns reads based on the 'exon' attribute within the GTF file.

type: string
default: exon

Specifies the feature type from the GTF file to use when generating the biotype plot with featureCounts.

Do not load the iGenomes reference config.

hidden
type: boolean

Prevent loading of igenomes.config when running the pipeline. Use this option if you encounter conflicts between custom parameters and those in the iGenomes configuration.

The base path to the igenomes reference files

hidden
type: string
default: s3://ngi-igenomes/igenomes/

Options to adjust read trimming criteria.

Specifies the trimming tool to use - available options are 'trimgalore' and 'fastp'.

type: string

Extra arguments to pass to Trim Galore! command in addition to defaults defined by the pipeline.

type: string

Extra arguments to pass to fastp command in addition to defaults defined by the pipeline.

type: string

Minimum number of trimmed reads below which samples are removed from further processing. Some downstream steps in the pipeline will fail if this threshold is too low.

type: integer
default: 10000

Options for filtering reads prior to alignment

Path to comma-separated file containing a list of reference genomes to filter reads against with BBSplit. You have to also explicitly set --skip_bbsplit false if you want to use BBSplit.

type: string

The file should contain 2 columns: short name and full path to reference genome(s), for example:

mm10,/path/to/mm10.fa
ecoli,/path/to/ecoli.fa

Path to directory or tar.gz archive for pre-built BBSplit index.

type: string

The BBSplit index must be built at least once with this pipeline. Use --save_reference to save the index, which can then be provided via --bbsplit_index for future runs.

Path to directory or tar.gz archive for pre-built sortmerna index.

type: string

The SortMeRNA index must be built at least once with this pipeline. Use --save_reference to save the index, which can then be provided via --sortmerna_index for future runs.

Enable the removal of reads derived from ribosomal RNA using SortMeRNA.

type: boolean

Any patterns found in sequences defined by the --ribo_database_manifest parameter will be used for filtering.

Text file containing paths to fasta files (one per line) that will be used to create the database for SortMeRNA.

type: string
default: ${projectDir}/workflows/rnaseq/assets/rrna-db-defaults.txt

By default, rRNA databases from the SortMeRNA GitHub repository are used. See the example in assets/rrna-default-dbs.txt. Note: commercial/non-academic entities require SILVA licensing for these databases.

Options for processing reads with unique molecular identifiers

Enable UMI-based read deduplication.

type: boolean

Specifies the tool to use for UMI deduplication - available options are 'umitools' and 'umicollapse'.

type: string

UMI pattern to use. Can be either 'string' (default) or 'regex'.

type: string
default: string

Detailed information can be found in the UMI-tools documentation.

The UMI barcode pattern to use e.g. 'NNNNNN' indicates that the first 6 nucleotides of the read are from the UMI.

type: string

Detailed information can be found in the UMI-tools documentation.

The UMI barcode pattern to use if the UMI is located in read 2.

type: string

After UMI barcode extraction discard either R1 or R2 by setting this parameter to 1 or 2, respectively.

type: integer

The character that separates the UMI in the read name. Most likely a colon if you skipped the extraction with UMI-tools and used other software.

type: string
pattern: ^\S+$

Method to use to determine read groups by subsuming those with similar UMIs. All methods start by identifying the reads with the same mapping position, but treat similar yet nonidentical UMIs differently.

type: string

Generate output stats when running "umi_tools dedup".

type: boolean

Generating these output statistics can be time-consuming. See issue #827 for more information.

Options to adjust parameters and filtering criteria for read alignments.

Specifies the alignment algorithm to use - available options are 'star_salmon', 'star_rsem' and 'hisat2'.

type: string

Specifies the pseudo aligner to use - available options are 'salmon'. Runs in addition to '--aligner'.

type: string

Kmer length passed to indexing step of pseudoaligners

type: integer
default: 31

Setting an appropriate kmer size is crucial for quantification with Kallisto or Salmon. This is particularly important for short reads (<50bp), where the default size of 31 can cause problems.

Create a CSI index for BAM files instead of the traditional BAI index. This will be required for genomes with larger chromosome sizes.

type: boolean

When using pre-built STAR indices do not re-extract and use splice junctions from the GTF file.

type: boolean

Override Salmon library type inferred based on strandedness defined in meta object.

type: string

Refer to the Salmon documentation for details on library types.

Minimum percentage of uniquely mapped reads below which samples are removed from further processing.

type: number
default: 5

Downstream pipeline steps may fail if this threshold is set too low.

Sequencing center information to be added to read group of BAM files.

type: string

Perform reference-guided de novo assembly of transcripts using StringTie i.e. dont restrict to those in GTF file.

type: boolean

Extra arguments to pass to STAR alignment command in addition to defaults defined by the pipeline. Only available for the STAR-Salmon route.

type: string

Extra arguments to pass to Salmon quant command in addition to defaults defined by the pipeline.

type: string

Extra arguments to pass to Kallisto quant command in addition to defaults defined by the pipeline.

type: string

In single-end mode Kallisto requires an estimated fragment length. Specify a default value for that here. TODO: use existing RSeQC results to do this dynamically.

type: integer
default: 200

In single-end mode, Kallisto requires an estimated standard error for fragment length. Specify a default value for that here. TODO: use existing RSeQC results to do this dynamically.

type: integer
default: 200

The fraction of stranded reads that must be assigned to a strandedness for confident assignment. Must be at least 0.5.

type: number
default: 0.8

The difference in fraction of stranded reads assigned to 'forward' and 'reverse' below which a sample is classified as 'unstranded'. By default the forward and reverse fractions must differ by less than 0.1 for the sample to be called as unstranded.

type: number
default: 0.1

Additional output files produces as intermediates that can be saved

Save FastQ files after merging re-sequenced libraries in the results directory.

type: boolean

If this option is specified, intermediate FastQ and BAM files produced by UMI-tools are also saved in the results directory.

type: boolean

If this option is specified, intermediate FastQ files containing non-rRNA reads will be saved in the results directory.

type: boolean

If this option is specified, FastQ files split by reference will be saved in the results directory.

type: boolean

If generated by the pipeline save the STAR index in the results directory.

type: boolean

If the pipeline generates an alignment index, use this parameter to save it to your results folder for future pipeline runs, reducing processing time.

Save the trimmed FastQ files in the results directory.

type: boolean

By default, trimmed FastQ files are not saved. Enable this option to copy these files to the results directory.

Save the intermediate BAM files from the alignment step.

type: boolean

By default, only final filtered BAM files are saved to conserve storage. Enable this option to also save intermediate BAM files from the alignment process.

Where possible, save unaligned reads from either STAR, HISAT2 or Salmon to the results directory.

type: boolean

Output may be in FastQ or BAM format depending on the options available for the specific alignment tool used.

Save read-by-read assignments from Kraken2.

type: boolean

The --kraken_db parameter must be provided to use this option.

Save reads that were not given assignment from Kraken2.

type: boolean

The --kraken_db parameter must be provided to use this option.

Additional quality control options.

Extra arguments to pass to the fq lint command.

type: string
default: --disable-validator P001

Use vst transformation instead of rlog with DESeq2.

type: boolean
default: true

See the DESeq2 documentation for details on transformations.

Comma-separated list of RSeQC modules to run.

type: string
default: bam_stat,inner_distance,infer_experiment,junction_annotation,junction_saturation,read_distribution,read_duplication

Available modules include: bam_stat, inner_distance, infer_experiment, junction_annotation, junction_saturation, read_distribution, read_duplication.

Tool to use for detecting contaminants in unaligned reads - available options are 'kraken2' and 'kraken2_bracken'

type: string

Database when using Kraken2/Bracken for contaminant screening.

type: string

See the usage documentation for more information on setting up and using Kraken2 databases.

Taxonomic level for Bracken abundance estimations.

type: string

Use the first letter of taxonomic levels: Domain, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, or Species.

Options to skip various steps within the workflow.

Skip filtering of GTF for valid scaffolds and/ or transcript IDs.

type: boolean

If you're confident in your GTF file's compatibility with the genome FASTA file, or want to ignore filtering errors, enable this option.

Skip the 'transcript_id' checking component of the GTF filtering script used in the pipeline. Ensure the GTF file is valid.

type: boolean

Skip BBSplit for removal of non-reference genome reads.

type: boolean
default: true

Skip the UMI extraction from the read in case the UMIs have been moved to the headers in advance of the pipeline run.

type: boolean

Skip linting checks during FASTQ preprocessing and filtering.

type: boolean

Skip the adapter trimming step.

type: boolean

Use this option if your FastQ files have already been trimmed or if you're certain they contain no adapter contamination.

Skip all of the alignment-based processes within the pipeline.

type: boolean

Skip all of the pseudoalignment-based processes within the pipeline.

type: boolean

Skip picard MarkDuplicates step.

type: boolean

Skip bigWig file creation.

type: boolean

Skip StringTie.

type: boolean

Skip FastQC.

type: boolean

Skip Preseq.

type: boolean
default: true

Skip dupRadar.

type: boolean

Skip Qualimap.

type: boolean

Skip RSeQC.

type: boolean

Skip additional featureCounts process for biotype QC.

type: boolean

Skip DESeq2 PCA and heatmap plotting.

type: boolean

Skip MultiQC.

type: boolean

Skip all QC steps except for MultiQC.

type: boolean

Parameters used to describe centralised config profiles. These should not be edited.

Git commit id for Institutional configs.

hidden
type: string
default: master

Base directory for Institutional configs.

hidden
type: string
default: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nf-core/configs/master

When running offline, Nextflow cannot retrieve institutional configuration files from the internet. If needed, download these files from the repository and specify their location with this parameter.

Institutional config name.

hidden
type: string

Institutional config description.

hidden
type: string

Institutional config contact information.

hidden
type: string

Institutional config URL link.

hidden
type: string

Less common options for the pipeline, typically set in a config file.

Display version and exit.

hidden
type: boolean

Method used to save pipeline results to output directory.

hidden
type: string

Controls how files are saved to the output directory through Nextflow's publishDir directive. See the Nextflow documentation for available options.

Email address for completion summary, only when pipeline fails.

hidden
type: string
pattern: ^([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)\.([a-zA-Z]{2,5})$

Specify an email address to receive a summary report only when the pipeline fails to complete successfully.

Send plain-text email instead of HTML.

hidden
type: boolean

File size limit when attaching MultiQC reports to summary emails.

hidden
type: string
default: 25.MB

Do not use coloured log outputs.

hidden
type: boolean

Incoming Webhook URL for messaging service

hidden
type: string

URL for messaging service integration. Currently supports Microsoft Teams and Slack.

Custom config file to supply to MultiQC.

hidden
type: string

Custom logo file to supply to MultiQC. File name must also be set in the MultiQC config file

hidden
type: string

Custom MultiQC yaml file containing HTML including a methods description.

type: string

Boolean whether to validate parameters against the schema at runtime

hidden
type: boolean
default: true

Base URL or local path to location of pipeline test dataset files

hidden
type: string
default: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nf-core/test-datasets/7f1614baeb0ddf66e60be78c3d9fa55440465ac8/

Suffix to add to the trace report filename.

hidden
type: string
pattern: ^[a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.{}]+$

You can use '{date}' as a placeholder which will be replaced with the current date and time in the format 'yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm-ss'. For example, 'run_{date}' will become 'run_2023-05-15_14-30-45'.