WILDS Workflow Development Program

The Research Informatics team of Fred Hutch’s Office of the Chief Data Officer (OCDO) offers free, collaborative support to help Fred Hutch researchers develop WDL (Workflow Description Language) workflows for scalable, reproducible computational analyses. In exchange, completed workflows are contributed to the open-source WILDS WDL Library for the broader research community.
What We Do
- Collaborate with researchers to convert existing scripts, pipelines, or tool combinations into WDL workflows
- Provide workflows optimized for Fred Hutch HPC (Gizmo) and/or cloud environments like Cirro
- Publish all workflows to the WILDS WDL Library under open-source licenses
- Provide documentation on how to run and adapt workflows
What We Don’t Do
- Full bioinformatics consulting or data analysis (see Bioinformatics Shared Resources)
- Write workflows for proprietary or unpublishable methods
- Guarantee specific timelines (we prioritize based on team bandwidth and community value)
What to Expect
- Submit a request using our intake form
- Initial meeting - We’ll schedule a Data House Call to discuss your project, assess fit, and scope the work
- Development - The WILDS team writes the WDL workflow
- Testing & feedback - You test the workflow with your data and provide feedback
- Publication - The workflow is added to the WILDS WDL Library with appropriate attribution
Good Fit for This Program
- You have existing scripts or a published pipeline you want to scale up
- Your workflow has broad applicability to other researchers
- You’re willing to have the final product shared publicly
- You can commit time to testing and providing feedback
How to Request
Ready to get started? Submit a request here.
Questions? Contact the WILDS team at [wilds@fredhutch.org] or on the #workflow-managers channel of FH-Data Slack.
Resources
- WILDS WDL Library SciWiki Article - Overview of the WDL library and available workflows
- WILDS WDL Library GitHub - Source code
- WILDS WDL Library Documentation - Documentation site
- WDL Workflows - Introduction to the Workflow Description Language
- Data House Calls - Schedule a consultation with the OCDO team