Solution
/*
 * Process 1A: Create a FASTA genome index with samtools
 */

process '1A_prepare_genome_samtools' {

  input:
      file genome from genome_file (1)

  output:
      file "${genome}.fai" into genome_index_ch

  script:
  """
  samtools faidx ${genome}
  """
}
1 The solution is to use the genome_file channel we created in the previous step.