BioFlow-Insight: facilitating reuse of Nextflow workflows with structure reconstruction and visualization

Area of Science:

• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Software Engineering

Background:

• Bioinformatics workflows are crucial for reproducible and shareable analyses.
• Nextflow is a popular, flexible system for creating complex bioinformatics workflows.
• Reusing shared Nextflow workflows is hindered by their increasing complexity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a tool for automatic analysis and information extraction from Nextflow workflows.
• To facilitate the inspection and reuse of bioinformatics code.
• To address the challenge of underutilized shared workflow code.

Main Methods:

• Developed BioFlow-Insight, an open-source tool for analyzing Nextflow workflow code.
• Implemented functionality to automatically generate visual graphs of workflow structures.
• Provided BioFlow-Insight as both a command-line interface and a web service.

Main Results:

• BioFlow-Insight successfully analyzes Nextflow workflow code.
• The tool generates informative visual graphs of workflow structures and analysis steps.
• Facilitates easier understanding and potential reuse of complex bioinformatics workflows.

Conclusions:

• BioFlow-Insight aids bioinformaticians in understanding and reusing complex Nextflow workflows.
• The tool promotes better reproducibility and shareability in bioinformatics research.
• Automated analysis and visualization are key to unlocking the potential of shared code.