Utilities

In addition to bff-tools, the project includes a few optional utilities for browsing data and managing repeated jobs.

Which one should I use?

Tool	Use it when	Data source
bff-browser	You want to browse static BFF output without a database	local JSON or generated HTML
bff-portal	You want live queries over BFF data stored in MongoDB	MongoDB
bff-queue	You want to run and monitor many ingestion jobs on a workstation	local command queue

bff-browser

bff-browser is a lightweight web UI for browsing static BFF output such as genomicVariations and individuals.

Use it when:

• you want a simple local viewer
• you do not want to depend on MongoDB
• you want to inspect generated HTML or JSON output

For installation and usage details, see:

• utils/bff_browser/README.md

bff-portal

bff-portal provides a small API and web interface for querying BFF collections stored in MongoDB.

Use it when:

• your data is already in MongoDB
• you want live filtering and lookups
• you want a lightweight browser for database-backed BFF data

For installation and usage details, see:

• utils/bff_portal/README.md

bff-queue

bff-queue helps you submit and monitor many bff-tools jobs on a workstation or small server.

Use it when:

• you have many VCF or TSV jobs to process
• you want something more structured than shell loops
• you do not have a full HPC scheduler available

For installation and usage details, see:

• utils/bff_queue/README.md

Relationship to bff-tools

These utilities are optional. The main data-preparation workflow still goes through bff-tools:

1. validate metadata
2. convert genomic input
3. load BFF collections into MongoDB

Use the utilities only when you need browsing, lightweight querying, or job orchestration around that core workflow.