alterlab-brenda

alterlab-brenda is a skill for Claude Code from AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills. It costs 74 tokens per session (1,178 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A programming interface to BRENDA, a database of enzyme information collected from scientific literature. It provides reaction details, substrate preferences, organism data, and measurements such as Km and kcat.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to look up enzyme kinetics, reactions, substrates, inhibitors, optimal conditions, cofactors, and enzyme properties across organisms.
Why use it?
It removes the need to gather enzyme properties and reaction data from many research papers. It helps compare enzyme behaviour under different conditions.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Part of the alterlab-databases plugin — 39 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to look up enzyme kinetics, reactions, substrates, inhibitors, optimal conditions, cofactors, and enzyme properties across organisms.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-brenda
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills --skill alterlab-brenda
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install alterlab-databases, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 39 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for alterlab-brenda

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-brenda/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-brenda)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-brenda"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-brenda/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for alterlab-brenda

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-brenda"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-brenda.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 74 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,178 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Privilege Escalation · line 80
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00074 $0.01178
Opus 5 $0.00037 $0.00589
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00236
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00118

Measured 8d ago against content hash 4deac8da908f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

alterlab-brenda scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 4 executable files (scripts/brenda_client.py, scripts/brenda_queries.py, scripts/brenda_visualization.py, …), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

allowed-tools: Read WebFetch Bash(curl:*) Bash(python:*)
skills/databases/alterlab-brenda/SKILL.md · 119 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 119 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

BRENDA Database

Overview

BRENDA (BRaunschweig ENzyme DAtabase) is the world's most comprehensive enzyme information system, containing detailed enzyme data from scientific literature. Query kinetic parameters (Km, kcat), reaction equations, substrate specificities, organism information, and optimal conditions for enzymes using the official SOAP API. Access over 45,000 enzymes with millions of kinetic data points for biochemical research, metabolic engineering, and enzyme discovery.

When to Use This Skill

This skill should be used when:

  • Searching for enzyme kinetic parameters (Km, kcat, Vmax)
  • Retrieving reaction equations and stoichiometry
  • Finding enzymes for specific substrates or reactions
  • Comparing enzyme properties across different organisms
  • Investigating optimal pH, temperature, and conditions
  • Accessing enzyme inhibition and activation data
  • Supporting metabolic pathway reconstruction and retrosynthesis
  • Performing enzyme engineering and optimization studies
  • Analyzing substrate specificity and cofactor requirements

Core Capabilities

BRENDA access is organized into nine capability areas. Copy-ready snippets for each live in references/capabilities.md.

  1. Kinetic parameter retrieval — Km, kcat, Vmax by EC number / organism / substrate.
  2. Reaction information — reaction equations and stoichiometry.
  3. Enzyme discovery — find enzymes by substrate, product, or reaction pattern.
  4. Organism-specific data — compare enzyme properties across organisms.
  5. Environmental parameters — optimal/stability pH and temperature, cofactors.
  6. Substrate specificity — Km/Vmax/kcat per substrate, affinity ranking.
  7. Inhibition and activation — Ki, IC50, activators and mechanisms.
  8. Enzyme engineering support — thermophilic homologs, pH-stable variants.
  9. Kinetic modeling — modeling parameters and Michaelis-Menten plots.

Core Workflow

The typical entry point retrieves kinetic data by EC number, then parses the delimited response:

Read the full file on GitHub · 119 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 119 lines · 74 tokens per session scan A 4deac8da908f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

alterlab-brenda is a skill published in the GitHub repository AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills (66 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 74 tokens to every session and 1,178 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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