Experiment Readiness Checker (expready)

expready is a CLI tool that checks whether study inputs are analysis-ready before downstream workflows. It focuses on metadata quality, design quality, and sample-ID consistency across files.

Setup

pip install expready

Commands

• validate: check your inputs and create an HTML report.
• fix: clean common formatting issues in metadata/manifest files.

Input file requirements

Supported formats for all inputs: .csv, .tsv, .txt. Delimiter handling is flexible: expready auto-detects common delimiters (comma, tab, semicolon, pipe, or whitespace-separated columns). All input files must include a header row (column names in the first row). Headerless files are not supported.

metadata file (--metadata):

• One row per sample.
• Required columns:
  • Metadata sample-ID column (default sample_id, or the column passed via --sample-id / --metadata-id)
  • Condition column (default condition; if default condition is not found, treatment is tried; or use --condition)
• If you pass --batch, --pair, or --covars, those columns must exist in metadata.
• Metadata sample-ID values should be unique and non-empty.

matrix file (--matrix):

• Feature-by-sample table (rows = features, sample IDs in columns).
• Sample column names should match metadata sample-ID values exactly when both files are used.
• If metadata is not provided, expready infers metadata from matrix sample columns.
• Caveat: matrix-only runs are supported, but inferred metadata can weaken design checks; use a real metadata file for more reliable design validation.
• Common annotation headers such as gene_id, feature_id, or #OTU ID are supported as non-sample columns.

manifest file (--manifest):

• Sample inventory table (for example, sample ID + file path columns).
• Must contain the sample-ID column specified by --sample-id / --manifest-id (default sample_id).
• Sample IDs in this column should match metadata sample-ID values exactly.

Minimal examples:

Metadata (metadata.csv)

sample_id,condition,batch
S1,Control,B1
S2,Control,B1
S3,Treated,B2
S4,Treated,B2

Matrix (matrix.tsv)

gene_id	S1	S2	S3	S4
GeneA	10	12	4	6
GeneB	0	1	8	9

Manifest (manifest.tsv)

sample_id	file_path
S1	/data/S1.fastq.gz
S2	/data/S2.fastq.gz
S3	/data/S3.fastq.gz
S4	/data/S4.fastq.gz

Common Study Templates

Use these as starting points for common experiment types.

Bulk RNA-seq (metadata + count matrix):

expready validate --metadata metadata.csv --matrix counts.tsv --condition condition --output reports/rnaseq

Microbiome / 16S (feature table + metadata):

expready validate --metadata metadata.tsv --matrix feature_table.tsv --condition group --output reports/microbiome

Metabolomics (intensity matrix with batch effect checks):

expready validate --metadata metadata.csv --matrix intensities.csv --condition condition --batch batch --output reports/metabolomics

Paired or blocked design (for paired samples/subjects):

expready validate --metadata metadata.csv --matrix counts.tsv --condition condition --pair pair_id --output reports/paired

Manifest consistency check (sample inventory + paths):

expready validate --metadata metadata.csv --manifest manifest.tsv --output reports/manifest_check

Test runs

Pass example (metadata + matrix):

expready validate --metadata examples/metadata_valid.csv --matrix examples/matrix_valid.tsv --output reports/test_pass --report pass_report

Expected:

• Console shows Status: PASS
• Writes reports/test_pass/pass_report.html

Fail example (matrix only):

expready validate --matrix examples/matrix_valid.tsv --output reports/test_fail --report fail_report

Expected:

• Console may show Status: FAIL (this is expected for this demo path)
• Writes reports/test_fail/fail_report.html
• Writes reports/test_fail/metadata.inferred.csv

Input options

• validate: requires at least one of --metadata or --matrix
• fix: requires at least one of --metadata, --matrix, or --manifest
• Supported tabular file formats: .csv, .tsv, .txt (delimiter is auto-detected)

Optional arguments by file type:

Metadata file options

• --metadata FILE: metadata table path.
• --sample-id COLUMN: shared sample-ID column name for metadata and manifest (default: sample_id).
• --metadata-id COLUMN: metadata sample-ID column name (overrides --sample-id for metadata).
• --condition COLUMN: main grouping column (default: condition, matched case-insensitively; if default condition is not found, treatment is tried).
• --batch COLUMN: optional batch column.
• --pair COLUMN: optional pair/block column.
• --covars COLS...: optional covariate columns (space-separated names).
• --contrast A_vs_B: optional contrast in GroupA_vs_GroupB format.

Matrix file options

• --matrix FILE: feature-by-sample matrix path.
• Sample IDs are read from matrix sample columns.
• If --metadata is omitted, metadata is inferred from matrix sample columns.

Manifest file options

• --manifest FILE: manifest table path.
• --manifest-id COLUMN: manifest sample-ID column name (overrides --sample-id for manifest).
• --manifest-path COLUMN: manifest column containing file paths.
• --check-paths: check whether manifest paths exist on disk (uses --manifest-path or common names like file_path).
• Used for cross-file sample-ID consistency checks against metadata.

Other command options:

• --report NAME: output report filename for validate (.html is added if omitted).
• --format FMT: fixed-table output format for fix (tsv or csv, default: tsv).

Outputs

validate

Writes:

• report.html (or your --report filename)
• metadata.inferred.csv (only when --metadata is omitted)

Behavior:

• Provide at least one of --metadata or --matrix.
• Input-contract errors fail fast and do not write a report (for example: missing required columns requested by CLI options, inconsistent delimiters, or invalid manifest sample/path column settings).
• If you provide only --matrix, expready builds metadata from matrix sample columns and saves it as metadata.inferred.csv.
• Matrix-only validation is useful for quick checks, but inferred metadata depends on sample-name patterns and may reduce design-check accuracy.
• Sample-ID and condition column-name matching is case-insensitive, and treats _, -, and spaces as equivalent for matching.
• If you provide --manifest, expready compares metadata sample-ID values (from --sample-id or --metadata-id) to the manifest column set by --sample-id or --manifest-id.
• --sample-id sets a shared default; --metadata-id and --manifest-id override it per file.
• If the manifest sample column is missing, validation exits with an input error and does not generate a report.
• validate expects sample IDs to match exactly across files.

Examples:

# matrix-only validation (metadata inferred automatically)
expready validate --matrix counts.tsv --output reports/validate_matrix_only

# metadata + matrix validation
expready validate --metadata metadata.csv --matrix counts.tsv --output reports/validate_meta_matrix

# metadata + manifest validation (manifest column is named "rownames")
expready validate --metadata metadata.csv --manifest manifest.tsv --manifest-id rownames --output reports/validate_meta_manifest

fix

Writes:

• metadata.fixed.<fmt> (if --metadata is provided, or inferred from --matrix)
• manifest.fixed.<fmt> (if manifest is provided)
• fix.log

Behavior:

• --metadata is optional.
• With --matrix and no --metadata, metadata is inferred and saved to metadata.fixed.<fmt>.
• With only --manifest, no metadata.fixed.<fmt> is written.
• --format controls fixed table format and extension (tsv -> .tsv, csv -> .csv).
• fix does not map different sample-ID schemes. It only does safe cleanup (trim spaces, standardize empty-like values, remove fully empty rows).

Examples:

# metadata fixed + manifest fixed + fix.log
expready fix --metadata metadata.csv --manifest manifest.tsv --output reports/fix_meta_manifest

# metadata inferred from matrix, then fixed + fix.log
expready fix --matrix counts.tsv --output reports/fix_from_matrix

# only manifest fixed + fix.log
expready fix --manifest manifest.tsv --output reports/fix_manifest_only

# optional: write fixed tables as CSV instead of the default TSV
expready fix --metadata metadata.csv --manifest manifest.tsv --output reports/fix_csv --format csv

Understanding outputs and issues

What each output file means:

• report.html: main validation report with status, issue list, and suggested fixes.
• metadata.inferred.csv: metadata generated from matrix sample columns (only when metadata input is omitted).
• metadata.fixed.<fmt>: cleaned metadata written by fix (fmt is tsv by default, or csv if selected).
• manifest.fixed.<fmt>: cleaned manifest written by fix (fmt is tsv by default, or csv if selected).
• fix.log: summary of what fix changed (empty-like values standardized, fully empty rows removed, headers normalized/skipped).

How to read validation status:

• PASS: no blocking issues were found.
• FAIL: at least one blocking issue was found.

How to prioritize issues in report.html:

• Extreme: blocking issue; fix these first.
• Moderate: non-blocking but important quality risk.
• None: informational check passed/no action required.

Issue sections:

• Metadata: schema and sample-ID quality checks.
• Design: group structure and model-readiness checks.
• Cross-file: sample-ID consistency across metadata, matrix, and manifest.

Report wording guide

Common report language and what it means:

• Blocking issue: an issue severe enough to set overall status to FAIL.
• Some metadata sample IDs are missing in the matrix: sample IDs exist in metadata but are not found in matrix sample columns.
• Some matrix sample IDs are not listed in metadata: sample IDs exist in matrix columns but not in metadata.
• Some metadata sample IDs are missing in the manifest: sample IDs exist in metadata but are not found in the manifest sample-ID column.
• Manifest sample-ID column was not found: the column passed via --manifest-id does not exist in manifest.
• Manifest path column was not found: the column passed via --manifest-path does not exist in manifest.
• Header names contain spaces: non-blocking warning; run fix to normalize headers with underscores.
• Input file appears to have inconsistent delimiters: rows do not have a consistent column structure (often caused by mixed tabs/spaces/commas). In CLI validate, this is treated as an input error and the run exits before report generation.
• Duplicate sample IDs: the same metadata sample-ID value appears in more than one metadata row.
• Required metadata fields are empty: required columns (like metadata sample ID or condition) contain missing values.
• Some condition groups have too few replicates: at least one condition group has fewer than 2 samples.
• Condition and batch are fully linked: condition and batch are one-to-one, so their effects cannot be separated.
• A category value appears only once: a value in condition, batch, or covariates appears for only one sample.
• Model setup is too complex for the sample count: estimated model terms are too many for available samples.

Help

expready --help
expready validate --help
expready fix --help