AQUA FIELD GUIDE
Aqua field guide · RPID

Add your project ID
to every job.

From 2 November 2026 every Aqua submission must include an RPID. Find yours, update your scripts, and let a local helper build the commands.

Required from 2 November 2026
What changed

Every Aqua job needs a project ID.

An RPID (research project ID) tells QUT which research project a job belongs to. Aqua checks it when you submit.

Required in every submission from 2 November 2026.

That includes job arrays, interactive jobs and retries. Start using it now rather than relying on the grace period.

Step 1

Find your RPID.

  1. Look it up

    Sign in to the QUT Data Management Plan system and open your research project. An RPID is six uppercase letters followed by four digits. Menu labels may differ slightly from this description.

  2. Can’t find it? Ask

    Your project lead or QUT eResearch can confirm the right ID and that you may use it. Never borrow another project’s ID or use an example ID such as ABCDEF1234.

A correctly formatted ID is not proof that you are authorised; the scheduler checks that.

Step 2

Add it to your job scripts.

Choose one of these two ways.

  1. Write it into the script

    Put a literal ID in the #PBS lines at the top, before any commands:

    Inside job.pbs · replace the example ID 
    #PBS -P ABCDEF1234

  2. Or pass it when you submit

    Useful when one script is shared across projects:

    On Aqua · replace YOUR_REAL_RPID 
    export AQUA_RPID=YOUR_REAL_RPID
qsub -P "$AQUA_RPID" job.pbs
Don’t write #PBS -P $AQUA_RPID.

PBS reads #PBS lines before the shell runs, so shell variables are not expanded there.

Add -P "$AQUA_RPID" to array, interactive and retry wrappers too. Keep your real ID out of files you share publicly.

Helper

Build the commands for your ID.

Local helper

Build the accounting commands

Only checks the format. Nothing is sent, saved or submitted. Use your own authorized ID.

Uppercase, for example ABCDEF1234. That documentation placeholder is deliberately rejected by this helper.

Using an AI agent?

Let your agent update every submission path.

With the aqua-hpc skill installed, paste this request. It asks the agent to cover the easy-to-miss paths and to test with one tiny job.

Copyable update request 
Update this project's Aqua submission paths for the current QUT RPID requirement.
Inspect ordinary jobs, arrays, interactive helpers and recovery scripts.
Use my authorized RPID from local configuration; keep it out of committed examples.
Use a literal #PBS -P value or qsub -P "$AQUA_RPID", not a variable in a directive.
Preserve scientific settings and active run snapshots.
Show the changes and validation, then prepare one tiny test job.
Official sources

Check QUT’s guidance.

The deadline comes from QUT’s notice and the format from Aqua’s scheduler notice (28 September 2026). See sources and limits.