Bio Binning QC

Perform metagenomic binning, refinement, and QC with completeness/contamination checks.

Instructions

1. Compute per-sample depth/coverage with CoverM v0.7.0+ (or BBMap for short reads, minimap2 for long reads).
2. Bin contigs with QuickBin through Bryce Foster's official BBTools container (bryce911/bbtools:39.85; record digest when pulled). QuickBin is high-fidelity, CheckM2-agnostic, and scales well on both short-read and long-read assemblies. On a GPU node, run SemiBin2 v2.3.0+ instead — self-supervised contrastive learning with CUDA-backed PyTorch. MetaBAT2 v2.18+ is kept only as a legacy fallback for reproducing prior pipelines.
3. Run /tracking-taxonomy-updates for BBTools-container QuickClade domain triage on the bin directory and the source assembly with percontig. Persist the per-contig screen so mixed bins are visible.
4. Route bins by the QuickClade domain screen:
   • Bacteria or Archaea -> run GTDB-Tk taxonomy assignment. If the GTDB-Tk reference package is missing, set it up under $BIO_DB_ROOT, export GTDBTK_DATA_PATH, run gtdbtk check_install, and record the release before classification.
   • Eukaryota -> run EukCC v2.1.3+ for eukaryotic bins.
   • Viral or virus-like -> remove from MAG QC and route candidate contigs/genomes to /bio-viromics; use vConTACT3 for phage/prokaryotic-virus evidence and GVClass for giant-virus/Nucleocytoviricota candidates.
   • Mixed or low-confidence -> flag as potential chimeras and inspect per-contig assignments before QC scoring.
5. Run domain-specific QC:
   • CheckM2 v1.1.0+ for bacterial and archaeal bins (v1.1.0 is a breaking upgrade: update the pinned Pixi environment and refresh the DIAMOND v3 database from Zenodo DOI 10.5281/zenodo.14897628).
   • EukCC v2.1.3+ for eukaryotic bins.
   • GUNC v1.0.6+ for bacterial and archaeal bins only; treat it as a complement to CheckM2 for chimerism detection. Do not apply GUNC to eukaryotic bins.
6. Normalize routed outputs with scripts/build_bin_qc_tables.py. The join rejects GUNC rows for non-prokaryotic routes and refuses prokaryotic or eukaryotic bins that lack their domain-specific QC/taxonomy outputs.

Quick Reference

| Task | Action | |------|--------| | Run workflow | Follow the steps in this skill and capture outputs. | | Validate inputs | Confirm required inputs and reference data exist. | | Review outputs | Inspect reports and QC gates before proceeding. | | Tool docs | See docs/README.md. | | Build normalized tables | uv run --no-project python scripts/build_bin_qc_tables.py --routing domain_routing.tsv --checkm2 checkm2.tsv --gunc gunc.tsv --eukcc eukcc.tsv --gtdbtk gtdbtk.tsv --out-dir results/bio-binning-qc |

Input Requirements

Prerequisites:

• Tools declared in the project's pinned Pixi environment. See docs/README.md for expected tools.
• Reference DB root: set BIO_DB_ROOT to the project or site-local database directory.
• Coverage/depth tables or reads available to compute coverage.
• Docker or Apptainer/Singularity available for bryce911/bbtools QuickBin runs, or a documented local BBTools install. Inputs:
• contigs.fasta
• coverage.tsv (per-sample depth table)

Output

• results/bio-binning-qc/bins/
• results/bio-binning-qc/quickclade_percontig.tsv
• results/bio-binning-qc/domain_routing.tsv
• results/bio-binning-qc/gtdbtk_taxonomy.tsv
• results/bio-binning-qc/bin_metrics.tsv
• results/bio-binning-qc/bin_qc_report.html
• results/bio-binning-qc/logs/

Quality Gates

• [ ] Completeness and contamination meet project thresholds.
• [ ] Chimera and contamination flags are below thresholds.
• [ ] On failure: retry with alternative parameters; if still failing, record in report and exit non-zero.
• [ ] Verify contigs.fasta and coverage.tsv are non-empty.
• [ ] Verify reference DBs for QC tools exist under the reference root.
• [ ] QuickClade percontig screen exists for the source assembly and bin set before CheckM2/EukCC/GTDB-Tk decisions.
• [ ] Bacterial and archaeal bins have GTDB-Tk taxonomy with the database release recorded.
• [ ] Viral/virus-like bins are routed to /bio-viromics instead of reported as MAGs.
• [ ] Mixed-domain bins are flagged as possible contamination/chimeras with per-contig evidence.
• [ ] Normalized bin_metrics.tsv and gtdbtk_taxonomy.tsv cover every routed bin, including explicit viral/manual-review rows.

Examples

Example 1: Expected input layout

contigs.fasta
coverage.tsv (per-sample depth table)

Troubleshooting

Issue: Missing inputs or reference databases Solution: Verify paths and permissions before running the workflow.

Issue: Low-quality results or failed QC gates Solution: Review reports, adjust parameters, and re-run the affected step.