name: basalt description: > PKU-EMBL BASALT and BASALT-Air — recommended ensemble MAG recovery across one or more assemblies (multi-binner + refinement). Use this skill when: (1) Running BASALT multi-binner recovery, (2) Choosing Conda BASALT vs BASALT-Air, (3) Multi-assembly refinement, (4) Resuming checkpoints, (5) Writing reproducible BASALT Methods. Ensemble peers: dastool (SCG aggregation), metawrap (binning+refinement suite). Prefer basalt as the default ensemble route; use metawrap/dastool when a classical suite or contig2bin consensus is enough. For study design of assemblies, use study-design. For QC thresholds, use checkm2 and mag-qc. license: MIT metadata: version: "1.0.1" metagenomics.category: "analysis-tools" metagenomics.tags: "BASALT, MAG, ensemble-binning, refinement, multi-assembly, PKU-EMBL" metagenomics.upstream: "https://github.com/PKU-EMBL/BASALT" metagenomics.stage: "binning" metagenomics.maturity: "reviewed" metagenomics.last-reviewed: "2026-10-24" metagenomics.command-status: "Conda BASALT workflow and checkpoint contract statically reviewed; not executed here"

BASALT / BASALT-Air

Upstream: PKU-EMBL/BASALT · BASALT-Air · Guide: https://basalt-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Citation

Qiu, Z. et al. BASALT refines binning from metagenomic data and increases resolution of genome-resolved metagenomic analysis. Nat. Commun. 15, 2179 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46539-7

See also docs/references.md.

Analytical thinking

BASALT is one member of the ensemble binning family, alongside DAS Tool and MetaWRAP: multiple binners propose candidates, then a refinement/selection step produces a non-redundant MAG set.

Within that family, BASALT is the recommended default here — especially for related samples with coherent multi-assembly evidence (sample-specific assemblies preserve restricted populations; a matched co-assembly can rescue shared low-abundance genomes; cross-sample coverage informs selection and contig refinement).

Peers (still valid):

Do not pool unrelated strata just to feed BASALT more FASTAs.

Refinement (MLP ensemble + connectivity retrieval) is model- and feature-supported prediction, not experimental proof of contamination removal. Report BASALT_WEIGHT checksums when refinement underpins claims.

Edition choice

CLIs and checkpoints are not interchangeable.

Prerequisites

How to run (Conda BASALT)

Docs: usage

set -Eeuo pipefail
assembly="${1:?usage: run-basalt.sh ASSEMBLY R1 R2 RUN_DIR}"
r1="${2:?usage: run-basalt.sh ASSEMBLY R1 R2 RUN_DIR}"
r2="${3:?usage: run-basalt.sh ASSEMBLY R1 R2 RUN_DIR}"
run_dir="${4:?usage: run-basalt.sh ASSEMBLY R1 R2 RUN_DIR}"
threads="${THREADS:-32}"
memory_gb="${MEMORY_GB:-128}"
for input in "$assembly" "$r1" "$r2"; do test -s "$input" || exit 2; done
gzip -t "$r1" "$r2"
assembly="$(realpath "$assembly")"
r1="$(realpath "$r1")"
r2="$(realpath "$r2")"
test ! -e "$run_dir" || { echo "use a new run directory: $run_dir" >&2; exit 2; }
mkdir -p "$run_dir"
run_dir="$(cd "$run_dir" && pwd)"
ln -s "$assembly" "$run_dir/assembly.fasta"
ln -s "$r1" "$run_dir/R1.fastq.gz"
ln -s "$r2" "$run_dir/R2.fastq.gz"
 
(
  cd "$run_dir"
  BASALT -a assembly.fasta -s R1.fastq.gz,R2.fastq.gz \
    -t "$threads" -m "$memory_gb" \
    --sensitive sensitive --refinepara quick \
    --min-cpn 35 --max-ctn 20 \
    -q checkm2 --mode new -o study_basalt \
    >BASALT.stdout.log 2>BASALT.stderr.log
)

The example uses one short-read pair. For multiple samples, construct the exact comma-within-pair and slash-between-samples argument from a validated manifest; never interleave or infer mates from unordered globs.

PE syntax: , within a pair; / between samples. HiFi → -hf only (never -l).

Key parameters

Pipeline stages

assemblies + reads → coverage/connectivity → multi-binner candidates
  → within-/cross-assembly selection → contig screening/retrieval
  → reassembly → final MAG dir + QC

For short-read, hybrid, HiFi, pilot, and resume command shapes, read the bundled CLI cheatsheet after confirming flags against the installed BASALT version.

Hard rules

1. One dedicated run directory; never two processes in one CWD
2. Prefer local/symlink names for Conda edition
3. Resume only with identical inputs/code/models/DBs
4. Do not invent flags — verify against guide/--help

Literature notes (Nat. Commun. 2024)

From Qiu et al. (BASALT paper), useful operational points:

• Problem framed: mis-clustering, genome splitting, and multi-genome mega-bins

yield redundant/artificial/contaminated MAGs that poison downstream analyses.

• Strategy: multiple binners × multiple thresholds → neural-network core-sequence

identification → redundant-bin removal → non-redundant refinement; supports short-read and short+long assemblies.

• Coverage correlation coefficient (CCC): IQR-based contig coverage used in

selection/refinement — multi-sample abundance structure is first-class evidence.

• Reported gains (same assemblies): up to ~2× MAGs vs VAMB / DAS Tool /

MetaWRAP on CAMI; ~30% more MAGs than MetaWRAP on lake sediment, including unique class-level lineages; ~47.6% more non-redundant ORFs than MetaWRAP on that dataset. Treat as paper benchmarks, not a promise for every biome.

• Quality language in paper: baseline gates such as completeness ≥35 /

contamination ≤20 for refinement entry; high-quality often completeness ≥90 / contamination ≤5. Keep refinement entry gates distinct from publication filters in Methods (mag-qc).

Validation, recovery, and provenance

Require completed BASALT_command.txt, Basalt_log.txt, checkpoint state, and a non-empty set of uniquely named final bin FASTAs. Reconcile every input assembly/read pair to the run manifest, inspect failed binners/stages, then rerun checkm2 and gunc on exported MAGs. Compare accepted/rejected counts, completeness/contamination, contiguity, read support, and dereplication outcomes; do not infer success from the number of bins alone.

Use --mode continue only in the original directory with identical inputs, BASALT code, models, databases, and parameters. Otherwise preserve the failed run and start fresh. Archive input checksums, environment/container, BASALT edition/version or commit, BASALT_WEIGHT files and checksums, database releases, commands, logs, checkpoints, QC tables, and final-bin checksums.

Related skills

dastool · metawrap · lorbin · comebin · semibin2 · vamb · study-design · megahit · metaspades · kneaddata · checkm2 · gunc · mag-qc · drep