+
+
+ClipKIT is a fast and flexible alignment trimming tool that keeps phylogenetically informative sites and removes others.
+If you found clipkit useful, please cite *ClipKIT: a multiple sequence alignment trimming software for accurate phylogenomic inference*. bioRxiv. doi: [10.1101/2020.06.08.140384](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.08.140384v1).
+
+
+
+---
+
+
+## Guide
+[Quick Start](#quick-start)
+[Advanced Usage](#advanced-usage)
+[Performance Assessment](#performance-assessment)
+[FAQ](#faq)
+
+
+---
+
+## Quick Start
+### 1) Installation
+To install, use the following commands:
+```shell
+pip install clipkit
+```
+
+
+To install from source, use the following commands:
+```shell
+git clone https://github.com/JLSteenwyk/ClipKIT.git
+cd ClipKIT/
+make install
+```
+
+
+If you run into permission errors when executing *make install*, create a virtual environment for your installation:
+```shell
+git clone https://github.com/JLSteenwyk/ClipKIT.git
+cd ClipKIT/
+python -m venv venv
+source venv/bin/activate
+make install
+```
+Note, the virtual environment must be activated to use clipkit.
+
+
+### 2) Usage
+To use ClipKIT in its simpliest form, execute the following command:
+```
+clipkit
+```
+Output file with the suffix ".clipkit"
+
+
+
+---
+
+### Advanced Usage
+This section describes the various features and options of ClipKIT.
+\- [Modes](#modes)
+\- [Output](#output)
+\- [Log](#log)
+\- [Complementary](#complementary)
+\- [All options](#all-options)
+
+
+
+### Modes
+ClipKIT can be run with five different modes (gappy, kpic, kpic-gappy, kpi, and kpi-gappy), which are specified with the -m/--mode argument.
+*Default: 'gappy'*
+* gappy: trim all sites that are above a threshold of gappyness (default: 0.9)
+* kpic (alias: medium): keep only parismony informative and constant sites
+* kpic-gappy (alias: medium-gappy): a combination of kpic- and gappy-based trimming
+* kpi (alias: heavy): keep only parsimony informative sites
+* kpi-gappy (alias: heavy-gappy): a combination of kpi- and gappy-based trimming
+```
+# gappy-based trimming
+clipkit
+clipkit -m gappy
+
+# kpic-based trimming
+clipkit -m kpic
+clipkit -m medium
+
+# kpic- and gappy-based trimming
+clipkit -m kpic-gappy
+clipkit -m medium-gappy
+
+# kpi-based trimming
+clipkit -m kpi
+clipkit -m heavy
+
+# kpi- and gappy-based trimming
+clipkit -m kpi-gappy
+clipkit -m heavy-gappy
+```
+
+
+
+### Output
+
+By default, output files will have the same name as the input file with the suffix ".clipkit"
+appended to the name. Users can specify output file names with the -o option.
+
+```
+# specify output
+clipkit -o