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CLI reference

Global options

These options can be used with any subcommand.

Option Description
-v, --verbose Increase log verbosity (-v, -vv, -vvv)
-q, --quiet Suppress all output except errors
--version Print version
-h, --help Print help

Accession types

sracha accepts three types of accessions:

Type Prefixes Example Description
Run SRR, ERR, DRR SRR2584863 Single sequencing run (directly downloadable)
Study SRP, ERP, DRP SRP123456 Study containing multiple runs
BioProject PRJNA, PRJEB, PRJDB PRJNA675068 BioProject containing multiple runs

Study and BioProject accessions are automatically resolved to their constituent run accessions via the NCBI EUtils API.

Accession lists

The get, fetch, and info commands accept --accession-list to read accessions from a file (one per line). Blank lines and lines starting with # are skipped. This can be combined with positional arguments.

# From a file
sracha get --accession-list SRR_Acc_List.txt

# Mixed: positional + file
sracha get SRR9999999 --accession-list more_accessions.txt

sracha get

Download, convert, and compress SRA data in one shot.

sracha get [OPTIONS] [ACCESSION]...

Arguments

Argument Description
ACCESSION One or more accessions (run, study, or BioProject)

Options

Input / output

Option Default Description
--accession-list <FILE> Read accessions from a file (one per line)
-O, --output-dir <DIR> . Output directory
--format <FORMAT> sra Preferred format: sra or sralite
-f, --force Overwrite existing files

Sequence output

Option Default Description
--split <MODE> split-3 Split mode: split-3, split-files, split-spot, interleaved
--fasta Output FASTA instead of FASTQ (drops quality scores)
--min-read-len <N> Minimum read length filter
--include-technical Include technical reads (skipped by default)

Compression

Option Default Description
--no-gzip Disable gzip compression (compressed by default)
--gzip-level <N> 6 Gzip compression level (1-9)
--zstd Use zstd compression instead of gzip
--zstd-level <N> 3 Zstd compression level (1-22)

Performance

Option Default Description
-t, --threads <N> 8 Thread count for decode and compression
--connections <N> 8 HTTP connections per file

Download behavior

Option Default Description
--no-resume Disable download resume (re-download from scratch)
-y, --yes Skip confirmation prompt for large downloads (>500 GiB)
--prefer-sdl Skip direct S3 and resolve via the SDL API
--no-progress Disable progress bar

sracha fetch

Download SRA files without conversion.

sracha fetch [OPTIONS] [ACCESSION]...

Arguments

Argument Description
ACCESSION One or more accessions (run, study, or BioProject)

Options

Option Default Description
--accession-list <FILE> Read accessions from a file (one per line)
-O, --output-dir <DIR> . Output directory
--format <FORMAT> sra Preferred format: sra or sralite
--connections <N> 8 HTTP connections per file
--validate Verify MD5 after download
-f, --force Overwrite existing files
--no-resume Disable download resume (re-download from scratch)
-y, --yes Skip confirmation prompt for large downloads (>500 GiB)
--prefer-sdl Skip direct S3 and resolve via the SDL API
--no-progress Disable progress bar

sracha fastq

Convert SRA files to FASTQ (or FASTA).

sracha fastq [OPTIONS] <INPUT>...

Arguments

Argument Description
INPUT SRA accession(s) or local .sra file path(s)

Options

Sequence output

Option Default Description
--split <MODE> split-3 Split mode: split-3, split-files, split-spot, interleaved
--fasta Output FASTA instead of FASTQ (drops quality scores)
--min-read-len <N> Minimum read length filter
--include-technical Include technical reads (skipped by default)
-Z, --stdout Write to stdout (implies --no-progress)

Compression

Option Default Description
--no-gzip Disable gzip compression (compressed by default)
--gzip-level <N> 6 Gzip compression level (1-9)
--zstd Use zstd compression instead of gzip
--zstd-level <N> 3 Zstd compression level (1-22)

Other

Option Default Description
-t, --threads <N> 8 Thread count for decode and compression
-O, --output-dir <DIR> . Output directory
-f, --force Overwrite existing files
--no-progress Disable progress bar

sracha info

Show accession metadata.

sracha info [OPTIONS] [ACCESSION]...

Arguments

Argument Description
ACCESSION One or more accessions (run, study, or BioProject)

Options

Option Default Description
--accession-list <FILE> Read accessions from a file (one per line)

Displays file sizes, available formats, download mirrors, and quality information for each accession. Study and BioProject accessions are resolved to runs first.


sracha validate

Validate SRA file integrity by decoding all records and checking for errors.

sracha validate [OPTIONS] <INPUT>...

Arguments

Argument Description
INPUT SRA file(s) to validate

Options

Option Default Description
-t, --threads <N> 8 Thread count for decode
--no-progress Disable progress bar