Step II: Create a BABS project

Initialize a BABS project using babs init

After you've prepared the three things BABS requires (details see here: Step I: Get prepared), you can initialize a BABS project using babs init. Please follow our documentation babs init: Initialize a BABS project describing how to use babs init.

If the BIDS App you'll use requires TemplateFlow, please make sure you've set up the environment variable TEMPLATEFLOW_HOME before running babs init. See Advanced - Manual of writing section bids_app_args --> the bullet point regarding "TemplateFlow" for more.

If babs init fails, by default BABS will remove ("clean up") the partially created BABS project. To fix the problem, please read the error messages from babs init. After identifying where the problem is (potential places are listed below), please fix the problem and rerun babs init.

  • Problems in babs init command?

  • Problems in input BIDS dataset(s)?

  • Problems in container DataLad dataset?

  • Problems in container configuration YAML file?

If babs init finishes without error, you'll see this message at the end:

`babs init` was successful!

Sanity checks and diagnosis via babs check-setup

After babs init is done, please use babs check-setup to check everything is good.

babs check-setup will perform these steps:

  1. Print out configurations of the BABS project;

  2. Perform sanity checks in this BABS project;

  3. Submit a test job to make sure necessary packages (e.g., DataLad) are installed in the designated environment.

Although the 3rd step is optional (only done when --job-test is specified), we highly recommend doing so before you babs submit real jobs, as real jobs often take much longer time and are harder to tell if the error comes from BIDS App itself, or some setups in the BABS project.

Very importantly, babs check-setup can also be used as a diagnostic tool - its printed messages are helpful for debugging. If you have trouble using babs init and hope to ask in a GitHub issue, please try running babs check-setup and copy the printed messages in the GitHub issue.