Liatir

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Getting started ​

In order to start developing a Liatir plugin, you have to install the Liatir CLI from @liatir/cli, the Liatir command-line package for scaffolding, developing, and building .lia plugins.

Liatir commands exposed by the CLI:

  • liatir init: this will generate your project folder and scaffolding.
  • liatir update: you can use this to update @liatir/cli.
  • liatir dev: opens a temporary Liatir Dev Runner session for testing the plugin inside Liatir.
  • liatir build: with this command the cli will build your plugin and generate the relative .lia file.

Quick initialization ​

  1. First run:
bash
npm install -g @liatir/cli

liatir init my-liatir-plugin --yes   # recommended defaults

cd my-liatir-plugin

npm install
  1. Once done, start developing your Liatir plugin.
bash
npm install -g @liatir/cli

liatir init

The CLI will then walk you through the project setup: ​

  1. Project folder — the directory to create (e.g. my-liatir-plugin).

  2. Runtime — how the plugin runs:

    • Node — JavaScript/TypeScript with the full Liatir desktop bridge.
    • Python — managed Python environment for Python scripts and scientific packages.
    • WASM — Rust compiled to WASM, for sandboxed local computation.

  3. Node language (Node runtime only):

    • TypeScript (recommended) — best type safety and contract validation while developing.
    • JavaScript — plain ESM plugin, no TypeScript project.

  4. Starter template:

    • Minimal text plugin (recommended) — the smallest example for learning the plugin contract.
    • File processor — reads metadata from a user-selected local file.
    • Bio CLI wrapper — wraps a local bioinformatics command.

  5. Metadata — display name, description, and category. All optional; you can change them later in the manifest.

  6. Install dependencies — answer Yes to run npm install right away.

  7. Open the project folder with cd my-liatir-plugin.

  8. Start developing your Liatir plugin.

Initialization flags ​

bash
liatir init                            # full guided initialization
liatir init plugin-name --yes          # uses recommended defaults
liatir init plugin-name --node --ts    # Node TypeScript plugin
liatir init plugin-name --node --js    # Node JavaScript plugin
liatir init plugin-name --python       # Python plugin
liatir init plugin-name --wasm         # Rust/WASM plugin
liatir init plugin-name --template <TEMPLATE_NAME>
liatir init plugin-name --category "Quality Control" --tags "FASTQ,QC"
liatir init plugin-name --no-install
liatir init plugin-name --no-wasm-target

Test, build and import ​

  1. While developing, use liatir dev to test your plugin as you work. It opens a temporary Dev Runner window in Liatir, rebuilds on save, and lets you run the current bundle without importing it into your real plugin library.

  2. When you're happy with it, run liatir build to package your plugin into a .lia bundle.

  3. Open the Plugins page in Liatir and import the generated .lia file.

  4. Now you are ready to run it by itself or integrate it into a pipeline.

Pipeline integration ​

The fields declared in inputs and outputs become the plugin's pipeline contract. Liatir uses them to render forms, validate required inputs, expose outputs to later steps, and store file outputs in Results.

For the exact bundle format, see .lia Bundle Format. For the API packages, see Liatir API packages and Plugin authoring API.