For a while now our lab has been using Python functions which basically construct a nipype workflow and then run it. A major problem is that we are using quite a few variations depending on experiment design, which involve adding or removing a node. Even in such cases where we can make this choice intelligently and automatically based on the input data, and in contrast to simply automating a parameter for a node, adding or not adding a node to a workflow leads to a logic branch. Having multiple optional nodes connected to each other leads to really inelegant nested if statements and/or long lists of multi-conditional elifs.

It would be great if this could be more easily managed. One simple (but hackish) idea I had was to have the option of making nodes quiet - i.e. every node has a quiet attribute, meaning that it simply passes the in_file to out_file, and gets excluded from the DOT graph. This, of course, would only work for nodes having an in_file and out_file.

Is something like this already possible, or is there perhaps an even simpler solution I am not seeing?

@damaggu