Migration between Snakemake versions

Snakemake is meant to remain backwards compatible as much as possible. However, sometimes, very rarely, we remove old almost unused features that have since then been replaced by new ones (so far, this happened only once, for Snakemake 8). Sometimes, new features are added that do not require, but make it strongly advisable to adapt workflows (e.g. because the new features provide a better user or recipient experience).

Below are migration hints for particular Snakemake versions.

Migrating to Snakemake 8

Workflow definitions

Snakemake 8 removes the support for three syntactical elements, which are all officially deprecated since multiple major releases:

  • Support for marking output files as dynamic has been removed. You should instead use checkpoints.

  • Support for the version directive has been removed. You should use the conda or container integration instead.

  • Support for the subworkflow directive has been removed. You should use the module directive instead, which provides the same functionality in a more general way.

In addition, we have moved the former remote provider functionality into so called storage plugins. Most of the old remote providers have been migrated into the new storage plugins (see the Snakemake plugin catalog.). Two former remote providers have been migrated into Snakemake wrappers instead, namely the NCBI and EGA remote providers, which are now replaced by the entrez/efetch and the ega wrappers. As of writing, the Snakemake storage plugin for xrootd (see here) does not yet pass the CI tests. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Command line interface

The command line interface of Snakemake 8 has a lot of new options which are best explored using:

snakemake --help

Moreover, some options have been renamed:

  • All the execution backends have been moved into plugins. When you used e.g. --kubernetes and corresponding options before, you should now use --executor kubernetes and check the Snakemake plugin catalog for the new options. The same holds for all other execution backends, see here.

  • The --use-conda and --use-singularity options are deprecated. Instead you should now use --software-deployment-method conda or --software-deployment-method apptainer or --software-deployment-method conda apptainer if you need both.

  • There is a new executor plugin for Google Cloud Batch. This is meant as a replacement for the old Google Life Sciences executor. The new executor is called googlebatch and can be used with --executor googlebatch. Please check out the documentation of the plugin in the Snakemake plugin catalog. Note that in principle it is fine to re-add google-lifesciences support as a plugin as well. We even have skeleton code for this here. Any help with getting this tested and released despite the fact that google lifesciences will be shut down this year would still be valued.

Interface comparison

Interface in 7.32

Interface description in 7.32

Interface in 8.0.1

Interface description in 8.0.1

Change introduction

preemptible

–preemption-default PREEMPTION_DEFAULT

A preemptible instance can be requested when using the Google Life Sciences API. If you set a –preemption- default, all rules will be subject to the default. Specifically, this integer is the number of restart attempts that will be made given that the instance is killed unexpectedly. Note that preemptible instances have a maximum running time of 24 hours. If you want to set preemptible instances for only a subset of rules, use –preemptible-rules instead. (default: None)

–preemptible-retries PREEMPTIBLE_RETRIES

Number of retries that shall be made in order to finish a job from of rule that has been marked as preemptible via the –preemptible-rules setting. (default: None)

Renamed

–preemptible-rules PREEMPTIBLE_RULES [PREEMPTIBLE_RULES …]

A preemptible instance can be requested when using the Google Life Sciences API. If you want to use these instances for a subset of your rules, you can use –preemptible-rules and then specify a list of rule and integer pairs, where each integer indicates the number of restarts to use for the rule’s instance in the case that the instance is terminated unexpectedly. –preemptible-rules can be used in combination with –preemption-default, and will take priority. Note that preemptible instances have a maximum running time of 24. If you want to apply a consistent number of retries across all your rules, use –preemption- default instead. Example: snakemake –preemption- default 10 –preemptible-rules map_reads=3 call_variants=0 (default: None)

–preemptible-rules [PREEMPTIBLE_RULES …]

Define which rules shall use a preemptible machine which can be prematurely killed by e.g. a cloud provider (also called spot instances). This is currently only supported by the Google Life Sciences executor and ignored by all other executors. If no rule names are provided, all rules are considered to be preemptible. The (default: None)

Renamed

list-rules

–list, -l

Show available rules in given Snakefile. (default: False)

–list-rules, –list, -l

Show available rules in given Snakefile. (default: False)

New alias: –list-rules

list-changes

–list-version-changes, –lv

List all output files that have been created with a different version (as determined by the version keyword). (default: False)

Deprecated: It seems due to the deprecation of version directive

–list-code-changes, –lc

List all output files for which the rule body (run or shell) have changed in the Snakefile. (default: False)

–list-changes {params,input,code}, –lc {params,input,code}

List all output files for which the rule body (run or shell) have changed in the Snakefile. (default: None)

Redesigned: Please use params such as --list-changes params,input,code instead of --list-code-changes, --list-input-changes, or --list-params-changes

bash-completion

–bash-completion

Output code to register bash completion for snakemake. Put the following in your .bashrc (including the accents): snakemake –bash-completion or issue it in an open terminal session. (default: False)

Unsupported?

deploy-sources

–deploy-sources QUERY CHECKSUM

Deploy sources archive from given storage provider query to the current working sdirectory and control for archive checksum to proceed. Meant for internal use only. (default: None)

reason

–reason, -r

Print the reason for each executed rule (deprecated, always true now). (default: False)

Deprecated: Drop it and don’t worry about anything

gui

–gui [PORT]

Serve an HTML based user interface to the given network and port e.g. 168.129.10.15:8000. By default Snakemake is only available in the local network (default port: 8000). To make Snakemake listen to all ip addresses add the special host address 0.0.0.0 to the url (0.0.0.0:8000). This is important if Snakemake is used in a virtualised environment like Docker. If possible, a browser window is opened. (default: None)

Unsupported?

stats

–stats FILE

Write stats about Snakefile execution in JSON format to the given file. (default: None)

Unsupported?

file storage

–unneeded-temp-files FILE [FILE …]

Given files will not be uploaded to storage and immediately deleted after job or group job completion. (default: frozenset())

–keep-remote

Keep local copies of remote input files. (default: False)

–keep-storage-local-copies

Keep local copies of remote input files. (default: False)

Renamed

–keep-target-files

Do not adjust the paths of given target files relative to the working directory. (default: False)

–target-files-omit-workdir-adjustment

Do not adjust the paths of given target files relative to the working directory. (default: False)

Renamed

seconds-between-status-checks

–seconds-between-status-checks SECONDS_BETWEEN_STATUS_CHECKS

Number of seconds to wait between two rounds of status checks. (default: 10)

remote storage

–default-remote-provider {S3,GS,FTP,SFTP,S3Mocked,gfal,gridftp,iRODS,AzBlob,XRootD}

Specify default remote provider to be used for all input and output files that don’t yet specify one. (default: None)

–default-storage-provider DEFAULT_STORAGE_PROVIDER

Specify default storage provider to be used for all input and output files that don’t yet specify one (e.g. ‘s3’). See https://snakemake.github.io/snakemake-plugin-catalog for available storage provider plugins. (default: None)
Renamed:

See https://snakemake.github.io/snakemake-plugin-catalog for available storage provider plugins.

–default-remote-prefix DEFAULT_REMOTE_PREFIX

Specify prefix for default remote provider. E.g. a bucket name. (default: )

–default-storage-prefix DEFAULT_STORAGE_PREFIX

Specify prefix for default storage provider. E.g. a bucket name. (default: )

Renamed

–local-storage-prefix LOCAL_STORAGE_PREFIX

Specify prefix for storing local copies of storage files and folders. By default, this is a hidden subfolder in the workdir. It can however be freely chosen, e.g. in order to store those files on a local scratch disk. (default: .snakemake/storage)

shared-fs

–no-shared-fs

Do not assume that jobs share a common file system. When this flag is activated, Snakemake will assume that the filesystem on a cluster node is not shared with other nodes. For example, this will lead to downloading remote files on each cluster node separately. Further, it won’t take special measures to deal with filesystem latency issues. This option will in most cases only make sense in combination with –default-remote-provider. Further, when using –cluster you will have to also provide –cluster- status. Only activate this if you know what you are doing. (default: False)

–shared-fs-usage {input-output,persistence,software-deployment,source-cache,sources,storage-local-copies,none} [{input-output,persistence,software-deployment,source-cache,sources,storage-local-copies,none} …]

Set assumptions on shared filesystem for non-local workflow execution. To disable any sharing via the filesystem, specify ‘none’. Usually, the executor plugin sets this to a correct default. However, sometimes it is worth tuning this setting, e.g. for optimizing cluster performance. For example, when using ‘–default-storage-provider fs’ together with a cluster executor like slurm, you might want to set ‘– shared-fs-usage persistence software-deployment sources source-cache’, such that software deployment and data provenance will be handled by NFS but input and output files will be handled exclusively by the storage provider. (default: frozenset({<SharedFSUsage.SOFTWARE_DEPLOYMENT: 2>, <SharedFSUsage.INPUT_OUTPUT: 1>, <SharedFSUsage.PERSISTENCE: 0>, <SharedFSUsage.SOURCES: 3>, <SharedFSUsage.SOURCE_CACHE: 5>, <SharedFSUsage.STORAGE_LOCAL_COPIES: 4>}))

Redesigned: Please change --no-shared-fs to --shared-fs-usage none

–job-deploy-sources

Whether the workflow sources shall be deployed before a remote job is started. Only applies if –no-shared- fs is set or executors are used that imply no shared FS (e.g. the kubernetes executor). (default: False)

(Clearer description needed)

greediness

–greediness GREEDINESS

Set the greediness of scheduling. This value between 0 and 1 determines how careful jobs are selected for execution. The default value (1.0) provides the best speed and still acceptable scheduling quality. (default: None)

–scheduler-greediness SCHEDULER_GREEDINESS, –greediness SCHEDULER_GREEDINESS

Set the greediness of scheduling. This value between 0 and 1 determines how careful jobs are selected for execution. The default value (1.0) provides the best speed and still acceptable scheduling quality. (default: None)

Renamed

debug

–overwrite-shellcmd OVERWRITE_SHELLCMD

Provide a shell command that shall be executed instead of those given in the workflow. This is for debugging purposes only. (default: None)

Deprecated

–mode {0,1,2}

Set execution mode of Snakemake (internal use only). (default: 0)

–mode {default,remote,subprocess}

Set execution mode of Snakemake (internal use only). (default: default)

Redesigned: use string instead of integer

APPTAINER/SINGULARITY

–use-singularity

If defined in the rule, run job within a singularity container. If this flag is not set, the singularity directive is ignored. (default: False)

–use-apptainer, –use-singularity

If defined in the rule, run job within a apptainer/singularity container. If this flag is not set, the singularity directive is ignored. (default: False)

New alias (more general usage)

–singularity-prefix DIR

Specify a directory in which singularity images will be stored. If not supplied, the value is set to the ‘.snakemake’ directory relative to the invocation directory. If supplied, the --use-singularity flag must also be set. The value may be given as a relative path, which will be extrapolated to the invocation directory, or as an absolute path. (default: None)

–apptainer-prefix DIR, –singularity-prefix DIR

Specify a directory in which apptainer/singularity images will be stored.If not supplied, the value is set to the ‘.snakemake’ directory relative to the invocation directory. If supplied, the --use- apptainer flag must also be set. The value may be given as a relative path, which will be extrapolated to the invocation directory, or as an absolute path. (default: None)

New alias (more general usage)

–singularity-args ARGS

Pass additional args to singularity. (default: )

–apptainer-args ARGS, –singularity-args ARGS

Pass additional args to apptainer/singularity. (default: )

New alias (more general usage)

–cleanup-containers

Remove unused (singularity) containers (default: False)

–container-cleanup-images

Remove unused containers (default: False)

New alias (more general usage)

precommand

–precommand PRECOMMAND

Any command to execute before snakemake command on AWS cloud such as wget, git clone, unzip, etc. This is used with –tibanna.Do not include input/output download/upload commands - file transfer between S3 bucket and the run environment (container) is automatically handled by Tibanna. (default: None)

–precommand PRECOMMAND

Only used in case of remote execution. Command to be executed before Snakemake executes each job on the remote compute node. (default: None)

Redesigned: more general usage

software-deployment-method

–software-deployment-method {apptainer,conda,env-modules} [{apptainer,conda,env-modules} …], –deployment-method {apptainer,conda,env-modules} [{apptainer,conda,env-modules} …], –deployment {apptainer,conda,env-modules} [{apptainer,conda,env-modules} …]

Specify software environment deployment method. (default: set())

New designed

executor

–cluster CMD, (may be –touch, –dryrun, …, ?)

–executor {cluster-generic,local,dryrun,touch}, -e {cluster-generic,local,dryrun,touch}

Specify a custom executor, available via an executor plugin: snakemake_executor_<name> (default: None)
New designed: Now if you want to use --cluster CMD, please use --executor cluster-generic --cluster-generic-submit-cmd CMD instead.

Note you should install cluster-generic using command pip install snakemake-executor-cluster-generic

–cluster CMD

Execute snakemake rules with the given submit command, e.g. qsub. Snakemake compiles jobs into scripts that are submitted to the cluster with the given command, once all input files for a particular job are present. The submit command can be decorated to make it aware of certain job properties (name, rulename, input, output, params, wildcards, log, threads and dependencies (see the argument below)), e.g.: $ snakemake –cluster ‘qsub -pe threaded {threads}’. (default: None)

–cluster-generic-submit-cmd VALUE

Command for submitting jobs (default: <dataclasses._MISSING_TYPE object at 0x7fc423088680>)

Renamed

–cluster-status CLUSTER_STATUS

Status command for cluster execution. This is only considered in combination with the –cluster flag. If provided, Snakemake will use the status command to determine if a job has finished successfully or failed. For this it is necessary that the submit command provided to –cluster returns the cluster job id. Then, the status command will be invoked with the job id. Snakemake expects it to return ‘success’ if the job was successful, ‘failed’ if the job failed and ‘running’ if the job still runs. (default: None)

–cluster-generic-status-cmd VALUE

Command for retrieving job status (default: <dataclasses._MISSING_TYPE object at 0x7fc423088680>)

Renamed

–cluster-cancel CLUSTER_CANCEL

Specify a command that allows to stop currently running jobs. The command will be passed a single argument, the job id. (default: None)

–cluster-generic-cancel-cmd VALUE

Command for cancelling jobs. Expected to take one or more jobids as arguments. (default: <dataclasses._MISSING_TYPE object at 0x7fc423088680>)

Renamed

–cluster-cancel-nargs CLUSTER_CANCEL_NARGS

Specify maximal number of job ids to pass to –cluster-cancel command, defaults to 1000. (default: 1000)

–cluster-generic-cancel-nargs VALUE

Number of jobids to pass to cancel_cmd. If more are given, cancel_cmd will be called multiple times. (default: <dataclasses._MISSING_TYPE object at 0x7fc423088680>)

Renamed

–cluster-sidecar CLUSTER_SIDECAR

Optional command to start a sidecar process during cluster execution. Only active when –cluster is given as well. (default: None)

–cluster-generic-sidecar-cmd VALUE

Command for sidecar process. (default: <dataclasses._MISSING_TYPE object at 0x7fc423088680>)

Renamed

Profiles

Profiles can now be versioned. If your profile makes use of settings that are available in version 8 or later, use the filename config.v8+.yaml for the profile configuration (see profiles).

API

The Snakemake API has been completely rewritten into a modern dataclass based approach. The traditional central snakemake() function is gone. For an example how to use the new API, check out the Snakemake CLI implementation here.