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Nextflow plugin registry

The Nextflow plugin registry is a central repository for Nextflow plugins. It hosts an index of plugin metadata that supports plugin discovery, accessibility, and version tracking.

Nextflow 25.10 and later can use the plugin registry as a drop-in replacement for the legacy plugin index hosted on GitHub. See Migrating to the Nextflow plugin registry for more information about migrating to the Nextflow plugin registry.

See Publishing a plugin for instructions on how to publish plugins to the registry, including the README.md requirement.

Claiming a plugin​

Ownership of a plugin is required to publish plugins to the Nextflow plugin registry.

To claim ownership of a plugin:

  1. Open the Nextflow plugin registry in a browser.

  2. Log in to Seqera with your GitHub or Google account, or by providing an email address.

    note

    If you are logging in for the first time, Seqera will send an authentication link to your email address to complete the login process.

  3. Go to the My plugins page and select Claim a plugin.

  4. Enter your unique plugin name or select the plugin you wish to claim in the Plugin name field.

  5. Enter your organization name in the Provider field.

    note

    Your organization must match the provider specified when publishing your plugin.

  6. Select Submit Request.

The plugin will show as PENDING REVIEW under Pending Ownership Requests until an admin approves the claim. Admin approval is required only once.

Creating an access token​

An API access token is required to publish plugins to the Nextflow plugin registry.

To create an API access token:

  1. Open the Nextflow plugin registry in a browser.

  2. Log in to Seqera with your GitHub or Google account, or by providing an email address.

    note

    If you are logging in for the first time, Seqera will send an authentication link to your email address to complete the login process.

  3. Go to the Access tokens page.

  4. Under Create New Access Token, enter a descriptive name for the Token name and select the token duration from the Expiry drop down.

  5. Select Generate token.

  6. Copy and past token somewhere safe, you won't be able to see it again.

Once you have your token, see Publishing a plugin for instructions on how to use it.

Configuring plugin registries​

Added in version 26.10

By default, Nextflow resolves plugins from the public registry at https://registry.nextflow.io. Configure the plugin registries using the registry scope in your Nextflow configuration:

registry {
    url = 'https://registry.myorg.com'
}

The registries defined in registry.url are authoritative: when one or more are configured, Nextflow resolves plugins from exactly those, in the order they are listed, and the public registry is not added implicitly. To keep resolving plugins from the public registry as well, include its URL (https://registry.nextflow.io/api) in the list explicitly.

When the same plugin is published in more than one configured registry, Nextflow combines the available versions across all of them. If a given version is served by multiple registries, the registry listed first takes precedence.

See the registry config scope for the full reference.

Alternatively, to override the default registry without using the registry scope, set the NXF_PLUGINS_REGISTRY_URL environment variable.

note

Both registry.url and NXF_PLUGINS_REGISTRY_URL override the default plugin registry. When both are set, registry.url takes precedence. Unlike registry.url — which configures the registries for both modules and plugins — NXF_PLUGINS_REGISTRY_URL applies to plugin resolution only.

warning

The registry scope is only applied once the configuration has been resolved. Plugins required before that point — for example a filesystem provider for a remote pipeline script or an includeConfig location (such as s3://), or an SCM provider — are resolved against the default plugin registry (or NXF_PLUGINS_REGISTRY_URL). As a result, the default registry may still be fetched even when it is not listed in registry.url. Plugins needed at this early stage must be available in the default registry, set via NXF_PLUGINS_REGISTRY_URL, or pre-installed.

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