epost

name	epost
description	Use when you need to post unique identifiers or accession numbers to NCBI Entrez databases for subsequent retrieval operations
disable-model-invocation	true
user-invocable	true

epost

Quick Start

• Command: epost
• Local executable: /home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/epost
• Full reference: See references/help.md for complete options and examples

When To Use This Tool

• Post a list of Entrez IDs or accessions for subsequent retrieval steps.
• Feed identifiers from stdin or file into the Entrez history workflow.
• Use this when IDs are already known and search is unnecessary.
• Chain directly into efetch or esummary for the actual human-usable output.

Common Patterns

# 1) Post a protein accession from stdin and fetch FASTA
echo 3OQZ_a | epost -db protein | efetch -format fasta

# 2) Post an assembly accession directly
epost -db assembly -id GCF_000001405.38 | efetch -format docsum

# 3) Post IDs from a file
epost -db bioproject -input bioproject_ids.txt | efetch -format docsum

Recommended Workflow

1. Choose the correct database before posting identifiers.
2. Decide whether the identifiers are UIDs or accessions and set -format if needed.
3. Use epost as the staging step, then immediately chain to retrieval or summarization.
4. Prefer file or stdin posting for long identifier lists instead of huge shell argument strings.

Guardrails

• Always specify -db.
• Make sure the identifiers match the target database and -format semantics.
• Standalone epost output is mainly machine-oriented; it is not the end-user deliverable.
• Use stdin or -input for long lists rather than stuffing thousands of IDs into -id.