alterlab-geo

alterlab-geo is a skill for Claude Code from AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills. It costs 155 tokens per session (2,134 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A data-access tool for NCBI GEO, a public collection of gene-expression and functional-genomics experiments. It can find and download studies, sample records, and processed or raw expression data.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for searching studies by accession, downloading microarray or RNA-sequencing data, extracting expression matrices, and supporting quality checks or comparisons.
Why use it?
It makes it easier to locate relevant experiments and obtain expression matrices for computational analysis.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

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

Good fit It is for searching studies by accession, downloading microarray or RNA-sequencing data, extracting expression matrices, and supporting quality checks or comparisons.

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

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

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-geo"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-geo.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 155 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,134 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 pass 7 Sept 2026
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 $0.00155 $0.02134
Opus 5 $0.00077 $0.01067
Sonnet 5 $0.00031 $0.00427
Haiku 4.5 $0.00015 $0.00213

Measured 9d ago against content hash b3b185048cd9, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

alterlab-geo 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 9d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/query_geo.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(uv:*)
skills/databases/alterlab-geo/SKILL.md · 166 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 166 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

GEO Database

Overview

The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) is NCBI's public repository for high-throughput gene expression and functional genomics data. It holds hundreds of thousands of studies (Series) and millions of samples from both array-based and sequence-based experiments. For current totals see the GEO browser at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when searching for gene expression datasets, retrieving experimental data, downloading raw and processed files, querying expression profiles, or integrating GEO data into computational analysis workflows.

Core Workflow

  1. Search for relevant studies (E-utilities / Bio.Entrez) → see references/searching.md.
  2. Retrieve a series with GEOparse: GEOparse.get_GEO(geo="GSE...", destdir="./data") → see references/geoparse_usage.md.
  3. Extract the expression matrix via gse.pivot_samples('VALUE') (genes × samples).
  4. Analyze — QC, differential expression, clustering, meta-analysis → see references/expression_analysis.md.

For bulk downloads, skip GEOparse and pull files directly over FTP → see references/data_access.md.

GEO Data Organization

GEO organizes data hierarchically using different accession types:

  • Series (GSE) — a complete experiment with related samples (e.g. GSE123456). Largest organizational unit. Holds experimental design, samples, study info.
  • Sample (GSM) — a single experimental sample / biological replicate (e.g. GSM987654). Linked to platforms and series.
  • Platform (GPL) — the microarray or sequencing platform (e.g. GPL570, Affymetrix Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0 Array). Shared across experiments.
  • DataSet (GDS) — curated, consistently-formatted collections (e.g. GDS5678) processed for differential analysis. Ideal for quick comparative analyses, but the curated GDS set is legacy and no longer growing — most recent studies exist only as GSE Series, so prefer GSE for new work.
  • Profiles — gene-specific expression data linked to sequence features, queryable by gene name, cross-referenced to Entrez Gene.

Read the full file on GitHub · 166 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 9d ago First seen · 166 lines · 155 tokens per session scan A b3b185048cd9

Subscribe to this mod's changes

alterlab-geo is a skill published in the GitHub repository AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills (66 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 155 tokens to every session and 2,134 once invoked, about $0.0008 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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