Population-scale Ancestral Recombination Graphs with tskit 1.0

TL;DR

The paper introduces tskit 1.0, a stable and efficient library for representing and manipulating ancestral recombination graphs, crucial for population genetics research and reproducibility.

Contribution

It announces the release of tskit 1.0, emphasizing its stability guarantees and foundational role in population genetics analyses.

Findings

Provides a stable, expressive library for ARGs

Ensures reproducibility of genetic analyses

Supports long-term computational durability

Abstract

Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) are an increasingly important component of population and statistical genetics. The tskit library has become key infrastructure for the field, providing an expressive and general representation of ARGs together with a suite of efficient fundamental operations. In this note, we announce tskit version 1.0, describe its underlying rationale, and document its stability guarantees. These guarantees provide a foundation for durable computational artefacts and support long-term reproducibility of code and analyses.