Alterlab Labarchive

LabArchives Integration

Overview

LabArchives is an electronic lab notebook platform for research documentation and data management. Access notebooks, manage entries and attachments, generate reports, and integrate with third-party tools programmatically via REST API.

When to Use This Skill

This skill should be used when:

• Working with LabArchives REST API for notebook automation
• Backing up notebooks programmatically
• Creating or managing notebook entries and attachments
• Generating site reports and analytics
• Integrating LabArchives with third-party tools (Protocols.io, Jupyter, REDCap)
• Automating data upload to electronic lab notebooks
• Managing user access and permissions programmatically

Core Capabilities

1. Authentication and Configuration

Set up API access credentials and regional endpoints for LabArchives API integration.

Prerequisites:

• Enterprise LabArchives license with API access enabled
• API access key ID and password from LabArchives administrator
• User authentication credentials: email plus the LA App authentication password token (LabArchives → click your name, top-right → "LA App authentication"). This token is the password passed to user_access_info; it is not your normal login password.

Configuration setup:

Use the scripts/setup_config.py script to create a configuration file:

python3 scripts/setup_config.py

This creates a config.yaml file with the following structure:

api_url: https://api.labarchives.com/api  # or regional endpoint
access_key_id: YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID
access_password: YOUR_ACCESS_PASSWORD

Regional API endpoints:

• US/International: https://api.labarchives.com/api
• Australia: https://auapi.labarchives.com/api
• UK: https://ukapi.labarchives.com/api

For detailed authentication instructions and troubleshooting, refer to references/authentication_guide.md.

2. User Information Retrieval

Obtain user ID (UID) and access information required for subsequent API operations.

Workflow:

1. Call the users/user_access_info API method with login credentials
2. Parse the XML/JSON response to extract the user ID (UID)
3. Use the UID to retrieve detailed user information via users/user_info_via_id

Example using Python wrapper:

from labarchivespy.client import Client

# Initialize client
client = Client(api_url, access_key_id, access_password)

# Get user access info
login_params = {'login_or_email': user_email, 'password': auth_token}
response = client.make_call('users', 'user_access_info', params=login_params)

# Extract UID from response
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
uid = ET.fromstring(response.content)[0].text

# Get detailed user info
params = {'uid': uid}
user_info = client.make_call('users', 'user_info_via_id', params=params)

3. Notebook Operations

Manage notebook access, backup, and metadata retrieval.

Key operations:

• List notebooks: Retrieve all notebooks accessible to a user
• Backup notebooks: Download complete notebook data with optional attachment inclusion
• Get notebook IDs: Retrieve institution-defined notebook identifiers for integration with grants/project management systems
• Get notebook members: List all users with access to a specific notebook
• Get notebook settings: Retrieve configuration and permissions for notebooks

Notebook backup example:

Use the scripts/notebook_operations.py script:

# Backup with attachments (default, creates 7z archive)
python3 scripts/notebook_operations.py backup --uid USER_ID --nbid NOTEBOOK_ID

# Backup without attachments, JSON format
python3 scripts/notebook_operations.py backup --uid USER_ID --nbid NOTEBOOK_ID --json --no-attachments

API endpoint format:

https://<api_url>/notebooks/notebook_backup?uid=<UID>&nbid=<NOTEBOOK_ID>&json=true&no_attachments=false

For comprehensive API method documentation, refer to references/api_reference.md.

4. Entry and Attachment Management

Create, modify, and manage notebook entries and file attachments.

Wrapper limitation (verified): labarchivespy.client.Client.make_call is GET-only — it builds an HMAC-signed query URL (akid + method + expires → sig) and calls requests.get. It cannot POST bodies or multipart files. The wrapper's README only exercises users/user_access_info, users/user_info_via_id, utilities/institutional_login_urls, and notebooks/notebook_backup; those are confirmed working. Write operations (create entry, comment, attachment upload) are not provided by the wrapper and must be issued as your own signed requests — the bundled scripts use raw requests.post for uploads and you must replicate the akid/expires/sig signing the wrapper does internally. Treat the entries/* and site_reports/* method names below as the documented API surface to confirm against your institution's API docs, not as wrapper helpers.

Entry operations:

• Create new entries in notebooks
• Add comments to existing entries
• Create entry parts/components
• Upload file attachments to entries

Attachment workflow:

Use the scripts/entry_operations.py script:

# Upload attachment to an entry
python3 scripts/entry_operations.py upload --uid USER_ID --nbid NOTEBOOK_ID --entry-id ENTRY_ID --file /path/to/file.pdf

# Create a new entry with text content
python3 scripts/entry_operations.py create --uid USER_ID --nbid NOTEBOOK_ID --title "Experiment Results" --content "Results from today's experiment..."

Supported file types:

• Documents (PDF, DOCX, TXT)
• Images (PNG, JPG, TIFF)
• Data files (CSV, XLSX, HDF5)
• Scientific formats (CIF, MOL, PDB)
• Archives (ZIP, 7Z)

5. Site Reports and Analytics

Generate institutional reports on notebook usage, activity, and compliance (Enterprise feature).

Available reports:

• Detailed Usage Report: User activity metrics and engagement statistics
• Detailed Notebook Report: Notebook metadata, member lists, and settings
• PDF/Offline Notebook Generation Report: Export tracking for compliance
• Notebook Members Report: Access control and collaboration analytics
• Notebook Settings Report: Configuration and permission auditing

Report generation:

# Generate detailed usage report
response = client.make_call('site_reports', 'detailed_usage_report',
                           params={'start_date': '2025-01-01', 'end_date': '2025-10-20'})

6. Third-Party Integrations

LabArchives integrates with numerous scientific software platforms. This skill provides guidance on leveraging these integrations programmatically.

Supported integrations:

• Protocols.io: Export protocols directly to LabArchives notebooks
• GraphPad Prism: Export analyses and figures (Version 8+)
• SnapGene: Direct molecular biology workflow integration
• Geneious: Bioinformatics analysis export
• Jupyter: Embed Jupyter notebooks as entries
• REDCap: Clinical data capture integration
• Qeios: Research publishing platform
• SciSpace: Literature management

OAuth authentication: LabArchives now uses OAuth for all new integrations. Legacy integrations may use API key authentication.

For detailed integration setup instructions and use cases, refer to references/integrations.md.

Common Workflows

Complete notebook backup workflow

1. Authenticate and obtain user ID
2. List all accessible notebooks
3. Iterate through notebooks and backup each one
4. Store backups with timestamp metadata

# Complete backup script
python3 scripts/notebook_operations.py backup-all --email user@example.edu --password AUTH_TOKEN

Automated data upload workflow

1. Authenticate with LabArchives API
2. Identify target notebook and entry
3. Upload experimental data files
4. Add metadata comments to entries
5. Generate activity report

Integration workflow example (Jupyter → LabArchives)

1. Export Jupyter notebook to HTML or PDF
2. Use entry_operations.py to upload to LabArchives
3. Add comment with execution timestamp and environment info
4. Tag entry for easy retrieval

Python Package Installation

The labarchives-py wrapper (provides the labarchivespy import) is git-only — there is no PyPI release, so pin to a commit if you need reproducibility:

uv pip install "git+https://github.com/mcmero/labarchives-py"

The wrapper handles request signing and the authenticated GET calls (user_access_info, user_info_via_id, notebook_backup). For anything it does not cover (entry/comment creation, attachment upload), issue your own requests calls with the same akid/expires/sig signing.

Best Practices

1. Rate limiting: Implement appropriate delays between API calls to avoid throttling
2. Error handling: Always wrap API calls in try-except blocks with appropriate logging
3. Authentication security: Store credentials in environment variables or secure config files (never in code)
4. Backup verification: After notebook backup, verify file integrity and completeness
5. Incremental operations: For large notebooks, use pagination and batch processing
6. Regional endpoints: Use the correct regional API endpoint for optimal performance

Troubleshooting

Common issues:

• 401 Unauthorized: Verify access key ID and password are correct; check API access is enabled for your account
• 404 Not Found: Confirm notebook ID (nbid) exists and user has access permissions
• 403 Forbidden: Check user permissions for the requested operation
• Empty response: Ensure required parameters (uid, nbid) are provided correctly
• Attachment upload failures: Verify file size limits and format compatibility

For additional support, contact LabArchives at support@labarchives.com.

Resources

This skill includes bundled resources to support LabArchives API integration:

scripts/

• setup_config.py: Interactive configuration file generator for API credentials
• notebook_operations.py: Utilities for listing, backing up, and managing notebooks
• entry_operations.py: Tools for creating entries and uploading attachments

references/

• api_reference.md: Comprehensive API endpoint documentation with parameters and examples
• authentication_guide.md: Detailed authentication setup and configuration instructions
• integrations.md: Third-party integration setup guides and use cases