Community-curated Galaxy interfaces with the Galaxy Labs Engine.

Abstract

The Galaxy platform is a globally distributed environment for data-intensive research, providing thousands of analysis tools across major public servers. However, this decentralized ecosystem presents usability challenges for both users and administrators, particularly in surfacing relevant tools and workflows for specific communities. To improve discoverability and support global collaboration, the Galaxy project has employed community-driven "Galaxy Flavours"-subdomains with curated content for defined research domains. While conceptually valuable, Flavours suffer from critical limitations: They are statically deployed, difficult to replicate across servers, and often provide inconsistent and unintuitive user interfaces. To address these challenges, we developed the Galaxy Labs Engine (GLE), a service that enables the creation of Galaxy Labs. This new paradigm enables globally synchronized, domain-specific entry points built from structured, reusable web content. GLE separates content from deployment, allowing communities to define a shared canonical representation of their domain, while enabling individual Galaxy servers to locally customize presentation. Labs are designed to guide users through curated tools, workflows, and training resources, and are aimed at researchers who are new to the analytical methods or technologies specific to the domain. The GLE provides a consistent, customizable, and community-driven interface layer for the Galaxy ecosystem. By fostering FAIR principles, labs offer a scalable improvement to Flavours and enhance Galaxy's ability to support diverse research communities. GLE is open-source and currently deployed at https://labs.usegalaxy.org.au, with multiple Labs already supporting active user groups. This work strengthens Galaxy's role as a collaborative platform for reproducible, user-centred science.