GCC2026 CollaborationFest (CoFest!)
CoFest: A Collaborative Sprint for Everyone
CoFest is a community gathering by those interested in contributing to Galaxy's tool set, documentation, training materials, code base, and anywhere else that expands the Galaxy ecosystem.
CoFest participants will gather around shared interests and address common topics related to those interests. It is an informal, highly interactive meeting where you get to "hack" on a topic of choice - and you can do it with others that share similar interests.
CoFest will be held June 25-26, 2026, immediately following the main GCC2026 conference in Clermont-Ferrand, France. You can attend CoFest whether or not you attend the main conference.
What to Expect at CoFest
The goals of CoFest are to expand the Galaxy contributor community and its ecosystem.
Engage in an interactive environment where you can:
- Improve Tools & Workflows – Enhance Galaxy & Bioconductor functionalities.
- Enhance Documentation & Training – Support learning through refined materials.
- Design & User Experience – Create accessible and visually appealing interfaces.
- Community Discussions – Collaborate with enthusiasts and experts.
- Casual Collaboration – Enjoy a stress-free setting to innovate.
Why you should join ?
Joining CoFest means you can:
- Meet Experts & Enthusiasts – Forge strong community connections.
- Learn New Skills – Gain hands-on experience with real-world projects.
- Make an Impact – Contribute to an expansive ecosystem.
- Enjoy a Vibrant Community – Collaborate with passionate, supportive peers.
Welcome aboard! If you'd like to get involved early check out our live document of CoFest project ideas linked below. Feel free to add to this document or join someone else's project by adding your name to the Participants column.
A good project idea for the Cofest is preferrably a collaborative one or at the very least, one that would benefit from in-person planning, feedback and dicussion.
Note that this is not the exhaustive list of projects for the CoFest!
Share your ideas and get input from Working Group Leads.
Show up, share what you're curious to do (doesn't have to be a fully fledged project!), get input or support from the Galaxy Working Group leads (UI/UX, Backend, Systems, Tools & Workflows, Testing & Hardening, GOATS).
CoFest is all about collaboration and interaction. The best ideas and solutions come from open discussions and collective problem-solving.
Dates & location
CoFest will be held June 25-26, 2026, immediately following the main GCC2026 conference in Clermont-Ferrand, France. You can attend CoFest whether or not you attend the main conference.
Registration
To attend CoFest, we do ask that you register. This will help us find adequate space and ensure we have enough coffee and drinks.
Past projects (GCC 2024 & 2025)
This project involved deploying custom Shiny apps on Galaxy by converting them into R packages and containerizing them with Docker for consistency and portability. Galaxy configuration files were implemented to enable seamless user access. Additionally, existing Shiny apps—such as the Pampa Performance Indicators of Marine Protected Areas—were updated to enhance functionality, showcasing the integration of interactive tools for research and resource management.
Two tutorials were created for the Galaxy Training Network (GTN): "Best Practices for Citing Galaxy"—guiding proper attribution in publications—and "Hybrid Genome Assembly – Nanopore and Illumina"—a workflow for combining sequencing data. Both tutorials followed GTN standards to improve accessibility for researchers.
Planemo was improved to support user-defined tools in Galaxy, enabling direct uploads to the Test Tool Shed and allowing resource requirements (CPU, RAM, GPU) to be specified. Community feedback refined functionality, while support for R scripts and documentation were enhanced to simplify tool development and deployment.
This project focused on modernizing and enhancing the Galaxy interactive tours. Existing tours were thoroughly tested, and all HTML elements were replaced with standardized selectors as defined in the [Galaxy navigation configuration](https://github.com/galaxyproject/galaxy/blob/dev/client/src/utils/navigation/navigation.yml). Every core tour was validated for functionality and accuracy, with detailed results documented [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JGxx9Av2ilw9mT17xGj2KG4U4nbnDxJw7CFVfS6NiWQ/edit?gid=885495044#gid=885495044). Additionally, help text from the deeptools Galaxy integration was converted into interactive tours, improving user guidance and accessibility. The updates ensured a more robust and user-friendly experience for navigating Galaxy’s features.
This project curated Galaxy tools for biodiversity research, adding EDAM annotations and creating filtered collections for the Ecology and Earth SIGs. A wish list for new tools was developed, existing wrappers were reviewed and annotated, and contributions were made to Bio.tools—all to improve accessibility and support for researchers.
Galaxy 24.0 introduced path-based ITs, removing the need for wildcard DNS/SSL and simplifying deployment. This project enabled direct URL path access for ITs, reducing technical barriers and improving flexibility, as outlined in the F1000 Research presentation.