Quick Start

Get up and running with the NEMAR CLI in a few minutes.

1. Sign In

nemar auth login

This opens your browser to NEMAR’s sign-in page and prints a link and a code either way. On a headless machine (a cluster, a container, an SSH session with no display), that link is the whole mechanism, not a fallback: copy it into a browser anywhere, sign in with ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID), confirm, and the terminal finishes on its own. See Authentication for the full walk-through.

If this is a brand-new account, run nemar auth signup instead: it signs in the same way, then asks only what’s still missing (a username, your GitHub handle, city, and country), and ends by requesting upload access for you, covering step 3 below.

nemar auth signup

Note

Already have a password-era account? nemar auth retrieve-key and nemar auth regenerate-key still work but are deprecated in v0.10.0 and removed in the next release. nemar auth login replaces both.

2. Complete Sandbox Training

Before uploading real datasets, complete sandbox training:

nemar sandbox

This verifies your git-annex and GitHub setup by uploading a small test dataset. It needs only a signed-in, verified account, no admin action.

3. Request Upload Access

Uploading a real dataset needs one more thing: a one-time admin grant. nemar auth signup already asked for this unless you passed --no-upload-access; if you signed in with nemar auth login instead, or skipped it, ask once your username, name, GitHub handle, city, and country are set (see Account settings):

nemar auth request-upload-access

You’ll get an email once an admin grants it; check any time with nemar auth status --refresh. See Upload access for what the review looks at.

4. Validate Your Dataset

Before uploading, validate your BIDS dataset:

nemar dataset validate ./my-dataset

Fix any errors before proceeding. Warnings are acceptable but should be reviewed.

5. Upload Your Dataset

Upload your validated dataset:

nemar dataset upload ./my-dataset

The dataset name defaults to the BIDS Name field in dataset_description.json (or the directory name as fallback).

6. Check Status

Monitor your dataset:

nemar dataset status nm000104

Common Workflows

Download a Dataset

# Download a dataset (includes data files)
nemar dataset download nm000104

# Or clone without data files
nemar dataset clone nm000104

# Get specific data files later
nemar dataset get sub-01/

List Your Datasets

nemar dataset list --mine

Create a New Version

After making changes, create a version bump PR:

nemar dataset release nm000104 --type minor

Need Help?

# General help
nemar --help

# Command-specific help
nemar dataset --help
nemar dataset upload --help