tag-bam

Quick Start

• Command: tagBam -i reads.bam -files annot1.bed annot2.bed -labels A1 A2 > tagged.bam
• Local executable: /home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/tagBam
• Full reference: See references/help.md

When To Use This Tool

• Label reads by which annotation tracks they overlap.
• Populate BAM tags from file labels, annotation names, or annotation scores.
• Add interval-derived metadata to alignments before downstream filtering or QC.
• Apply same-strand or opposite-strand overlap rules while tagging.

Common Patterns

# 1) Tag reads by which annotation file they overlap
tagBam \
  -i reads.bam \
  -files genes.bed repeats.bed \
  -labels GENE REP \
  > tagged.bam

# 2) Populate the tag with the annotation name field on the same strand
tagBam \
  -i reads.bam \
  -files exons.bed \
  -labels EXON \
  -names \
  -s \
  > reads.named-tags.bam

# 3) Record full interval payloads for debugging or provenance
tagBam \
  -i reads.bam \
  -files loci.bed \
  -labels LOCUS \
  -intervals \
  -tag YK \
  > reads.interval-tags.bam

Recommended Workflow

1. Choose the annotation files that define the tag source and decide whether the payload should be file labels, annotation names, scores, or full intervals.
2. Choose the output tag name with -tag if the default YB is not appropriate.
3. Add overlap and strand constraints with -f, -s, or -S before writing the tagged BAM stream to a new file.
4. Inspect a few records with a BAM viewer or samtools view to confirm the expected tags were attached.

Guardrails

• -i and -files are required, and you must also provide a tag payload source via -labels, -names, or -scores.
• -intervals still requires -labels so the tool can record which annotation file contributed the interval.
• The command writes BAM to stdout; redirect to a file or pipe into another BAM-aware tool.
• Custom tags supplied with -tag must be exactly two characters.
• If you use -labels, provide one label per annotation file.
• Prefer -h for help; GNU-style --help and --version emit wrapper errors before usage text.