Wave containers
Wave is Seqera's container provisioning service that enables on-demand container image management for Nextflow pipelines. Wave can provision containers dynamically during pipeline execution, removing the need to manually build and upload images to a container registry.
Deployment options
Wave can be integrated with Seqera Platform in two ways:
- Seqera Wave service: Use the hosted Wave service at
https://wave.seqera.io(default for Seqera Cloud) - Self-hosted Wave: Deploy Wave in your own infrastructure for full control over container builds and caching
Requirements
Network connectivity
| Source | Destination | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Seqera Platform | Wave server | API communication |
| Container registry | Wave server | Allow ingress for container operations |
| Compute environments | Wave server | Container image access during pipeline execution |
Container registry credentials
Container registry credentials must be configured in the Seqera UI to authenticate with your private or public registries. See container registry credentials for provider-specific instructions.
Configuration
Connect to Wave service
Configure Seqera Platform to use the Seqera-hosted Wave service or your self-hosted Wave deployment:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
TOWER_ENABLE_WAVE | Set to true to enable Wave integration |
WAVE_SERVER_URL | Wave server endpoint (default: https://wave.seqera.io) |
Verify connectivity
Test connectivity to your Wave server:
curl https://wave.seqera.io/service-info
Replace wave.seqera.io with your self-hosted Wave endpoint if applicable.
Features enabled by Wave
After Wave is enabled, the following features become available:
- Private container registries: Access containers from private repositories using credentials stored in Seqera
- Fusion file system: High-performance cloud-native file system for pipeline execution
- Container augmentation: Dynamically extend existing containers with additional layers
- Conda-based containers: Provision containers from Conda or Bioconda packages on demand
- Singularity support: Build and provision Singularity/Apptainer format containers
- Security scanning: Automatic vulnerability scanning of built container images
Wave features are available on the compute environment creation page after integration is configured.
Limitations
- The Seqera-hosted Wave service at
https://wave.seqera.iocannot pull from container repositories secured by a private Certificate Authority (CA), because you cannot modify its trust store. A self-hosted Wave deployment can pull from these repositories after you add your CA certificate to the trust store in the Wave container. See Configure Seqera to trust your private certificate.
Self-hosted Wave deployment
For enterprises requiring full control over container builds, caching, and security scanning, Wave can be deployed in your own infrastructure.
Self-hosted Wave supports:
- Wave Lite: Container augmentation and inspection capabilities (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Full Wave: Complete build capabilities including Conda-based containers and security scanning (requires AWS EKS with EFS storage)
See the Wave documentation for installation and configuration guidance.
Additional resources
- Wave documentation
- Nextflow Wave integration
- Seqera Containers - Free community container registry