alterlab-string-db

alterlab-string-db is a skill for Claude Code from AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills. It costs 120 tokens per session (1,451 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A tool for querying STRING, a research database of known and predicted interactions between proteins. It can build interaction networks and compare protein lists with biological pathway databases.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to expand networks from seed proteins, find interaction partners, compare species, identify connected hubs, and run GO, KEGG, or Pfam enrichment.
Why use it?
It avoids manually collecting protein relationships and supports evidence-based analysis of possible partners and functional groups.

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 expand networks from seed proteins, find interaction partners, compare species, identify connected hubs, and run GO, KEGG, or Pfam enrichment.

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

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-string-db.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-string-db)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-string-db"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/alterlab-string-db.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 120 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,451 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 $0.00120 $0.01451
Opus 5 $0.00060 $0.00726
Sonnet 5 $0.00024 $0.00290
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00145

Measured 3d ago against content hash 169b414e8f9d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

alterlab-string-db 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 3d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/string_api.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-string-db/SKILL.md · 133 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 133 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

STRING Database

Overview

STRING is a comprehensive database of known and predicted protein-protein interactions covering 59M proteins and 20B+ interactions across 5000+ organisms. Query interaction networks, perform functional enrichment, and discover partners via the REST API for systems biology and pathway analysis.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

  • Retrieving protein-protein interaction networks for single or multiple proteins
  • Performing functional enrichment (GO, KEGG, Pfam) on protein lists
  • Discovering interaction partners and expanding protein networks
  • Testing if proteins form significantly enriched functional modules
  • Generating network visualizations with evidence-based coloring
  • Analyzing homology and protein family relationships
  • Conducting cross-species protein interaction comparisons
  • Identifying hub proteins and network connectivity patterns

What This Skill Provides

  1. Python helper functions (scripts/string_api.py) for all STRING REST API operations.
  2. Comprehensive reference documentation (references/string_reference.md) with detailed endpoint and parameter specifications.

When a user requests STRING data, determine which operation is needed and use the appropriate function from scripts/string_api.py.

Core Workflow

  1. Map identifiers firststring_map_ids() converts gene/protein names to STRING IDs (format 9606.ENSP00000269305); always do this for speed and accuracy.
  2. Retrieve the network or partnersstring_network() for tabular interaction data, string_interaction_partners() to expand from seeds, string_network_image() for a PNG figure.
  3. Test and interpretstring_ppi_enrichment() checks whether the network has more edges than chance; string_enrichment() runs GO/KEGG/Pfam enrichment (FDR < 0.05 = significant).
  4. Compare / extendstring_homology() for family/paralog analysis; repeat with other species for cross-species comparison.
  5. Record versionstring_version() for reproducibility.

Read the full file on GitHub · 133 lines

Files

What ships with it

5 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. 3d ago First seen · 133 lines · 120 tokens per session scan A 169b414e8f9d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

alterlab-string-db is a skill published in the GitHub repository AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills (66 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 120 tokens to every session and 1,451 once invoked, about $0.0006 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 2026-09-05.

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