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Tool Suite Template

The Michigan Data Interface (MDI) is a standardized framework for developing, installing and running HPC data analysis pipelines and interactive R Shiny visualization applications.

These pages provide a detailed description of the MDI tool suite template, which you can use to create your own suite of Stage 1 Pipelines and Stage 2 Apps.

Quick start

Click here to create a new tool suite repository from the template.

We recommend NAME-mdi-tools as the name of your repository, replacing ‘NAME’ with an informative name of your choosing, e.g., ‘johndoelab’.

Open and edit the following files, using the instructions in comments to find lines to edit to match your needs:

  • _config.yml
  • overview.md
  • LICENSE (adjust the type, year, and licensee)
  • README.md (delete the developer instructions, if desired)

Then copy and modify the ‘_template’ pipeline or app, which provides a working boilerplate for all required code.

Further documentation

The rest of these pages walk you through the basic structure of pipeline and app assemblies and provide a working reference as you write code.

In addition, you will want to explore the documentation for the pipelines and apps frameworks that provide support functions for writing tools:


For more information about the MDI, please visit:

MDI Documentation MDI Basic Training MDI GitHub page