Genome assembly techniques comprise the algorithmic and computational protocols by which a genome sequence is reconstructed de novo from a set of sequencing reads, without reliance on a pre-existing reference sequence ^[1]. The defining operational feature is the inference of the original linear or haplotype-resolved chromosome sequence from short, overlapping or non-overlapping fragments, a problem whose solution requires resolving repeats, distinguishing allelic variants from paralogous sequences, and ordering and orienting contigs into chromosome-scale scaffolds ^[2]. The methodological space is conventionally organized by the graph paradigm employed for reconstruction: short-read assembly predominantly uses the de Bruijn graph, in which reads are decomposed into fixed-length k-mers and the genome is traversed as a path through a compact graph whose edges represent (k−1)-overlaps, whereas long-read assembly employs overlap–layout–consensus (OLC) approaches that exploit the greater span of individual reads to bridge repetitive regions that are unresolvable with short fragments ^[2][3]. Contemporary chromosome-scale assembly integrates multiple data types: long accurate reads (for example, PacBio HiFi) provide high per-base accuracy across multi-kilobase spans, ultralong reads (for example, Oxford Nanopore Technologies) traverse large repetitive blocks, and proximity-ligation or Hi-C data supply long-range linkage information for phasing haplotypes and scaffolding contigs into telomere-to-telomere (T2T) chromosome arms ^[4]. The term further encompasses assembly paradigms for non-clonal or mixed samples, including single-cell amplified genome assembly, in which the genome of an individual uncultivated cell is reconstructed from whole-genome amplification products, and metagenome assembly, in which reads from a microbial community are partitioned and assembled into metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) ^[5]. Across these settings, the output of a genome assembly technique is a set of contigs or scaffolds accompanied by quantitative metrics of continuity and completeness that describe the extent to which the reconstructed sequence recovers the underlying chromosome architecture ^[1].