Modules

Settings → Modules (/admin/modules) is the coarsest configuration control in SeqDesk. A module is a named bundle of behaviour — usually a set of form field types, sometimes a whole subsystem — that is either on or off for the entire instance. Turning one off removes its fields from every form builder and from every form a researcher sees, no matter what each individual field’s Visible setting says.

Only a facility admin can reach the page. The whole /admin area redirects RESEARCHER accounts to /orders, and PUT /api/admin/modules — the write path — rejects anything but FACILITY_ADMIN.

The three-part relationship

This is the part that trips people up, so it is worth stating plainly.

The modules

The page is split into four tabs, one per category.

Form Modules

Validation

Access Control

Communication

sequencing-tech is in ALWAYS_ENABLED_MODULE_IDS; its switch is permanently disabled and isModuleEnabled returns true for it even when the global kill switch is on. Instrument and kit registration for it lives on Sequencing Technologies.

Reading a module card

Each card also carries a Form integration block naming the target form and the exact field types, links to the builders that can place them, and — for sequencing-tech — an Open module settings link to /admin/sequencing-tech.

Form actions

These buttons do in one click what you would otherwise do by hand in a builder. They are disabled while the module is off, and they never duplicate a field that already exists.

Modules with their own settings

Account Validation

Expanding the enabled card gives you Allowed Email Domains. Domains are lower-cased and must contain a dot; anything else is dropped on save. The list is stored as accountValidationSettings inside SiteSettings.extraSettings.

Two switches’ worth of behaviour, from /api/register:

Cost Center & PSP

Configures how a billing field validates input: whether the PSP element is collected at all, its prefix range, the number of digits in the main part, its suffix range, and the example string shown to researchers — the shipped default describes 1-1234567-99. Cost centre collection has its own switch, an optional regular expression, and its own example.

Where the setting lives, and who reads it

State is one JSON string in the singleton settings row, SiteSettings.modulesConfig:

{
  "modules": {
    "mixs-metadata": true,
    "ena-sample-fields": true,
    "dynamic-studies": false
  },
  "globalDisabled": false
}

Unknown keys are ignored and missing keys fall back to the shipped defaults, so a partial object is safe. A bare { "module-id": true } object without the modules wrapper is still accepted for backwards compatibility. If the column contains invalid JSON, every module silently reverts to its default state rather than erroring — worth remembering if you edit the database by hand.

Enforcement is not in one place. Each of these reads the same column independently:

The browser copy is loaded once per page load through a React context. A module change therefore reaches other people’s open tabs only on their next navigation, not instantly.

The global kill switch

globalDisabled forces every optional module off at once. While it is set, the page shows “Modules are globally disabled at installation level”, individual switches are frozen, and each module that was on reports Paused (Global Off) — its own stored state is preserved, so clearing the kill switch restores exactly what you had.

What breaks if you get this wrong

Setting modules at install time

Module flags can be shipped in settings.json and merged over whatever is in the database by Infrastructure → Import settings.json (/admin/data-compute). The import merges rather than replaces, so a file naming three modules leaves the rest alone:

{
  "modules": {
    "mixs-metadata": true,
    "ena-sample-fields": true,
    "billing-info": true
  }
}

Troubleshooting

See also

• Form Builders — where the field types these modules contribute are actually placed
• Sequencing Technologies — the registry behind sequencing-tech and barcode
• Email Notifications — the rest of the notifications module
• User Management — registration, which account-validation constrains
• Study Metadata & MIxS — what mixs-metadata collects