New test-data specifications

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “SHOULD”, etc. are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

1 General

1.1 Replication of test data

The new test data file within a branch (modules or pipelines) SHOULD NOT replicate existing test-data unless absolutely necessary

  • If you need to make a new file that can be generated from an upstream file
  • For example, if you need a particular bioinformatic index file for a tool, index an existing FASTA file on the test-datasets branch

1.2 Size of test data

Test data SHOULD be as small as possible

  • It cannot exceed the GitHub file maximum
  • Data should be sub-sampled as aggressively as possible

1.3 License of test data

Test data MUST be publically available and have licenses to allow public reuse

1.4 Documentation of test data

Test data files SHOULD be described on the given branch’s README file, describing source, how generated, licenses etc.

2 Modules

2.1 Module test data organisation

Files SHOULD be generally organised based on existing structure, typically (for bioinformatics pipelines) by discipline, organism, platform or format

2.2 Relatedness of module test data

Downstream or related test-data files SHOULD be named based on the upstream file name

  • For example, if you used genome.fasta as the upstream file, your output file should be called genome.<new_extension>.

2.3 Module test data documentation

Test data files MUST have an entry in the nf-core/test-datasets repo README
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