chem-similarity-search

chem-similarity-search is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from learningmatter-mit/AtomisticSkills. It costs 30 tokens per session (627 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A tool for finding chemical compounds with similar two-dimensional structures through PubChem, a public database of chemical information. It accepts a compound's SMILES notation or PubChem identifier and returns related compounds and their chemical details.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to find structurally similar compounds, possible chemical analogs, alternative precursors, molecular formulas, molecular weights, and SMILES strings.
Why use it?
It reduces the need to search chemical databases manually when looking for analogs or alternative starting materials. A similarity threshold controls how closely the returned structures must match.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: installed under .agents/ (shared by several agents).

Good fit Use it to find structurally similar compounds, possible chemical analogs, alternative precursors, molecular formulas, molecular weights, and SMILES strings.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/learningmatter-mit/atomisticskills/chem-similarity-search
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 learningmatter-mit/AtomisticSkills --skill chem-similarity-search
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/learningmatter-mit/AtomisticSkills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 chem-similarity-search

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/learningmatter-mit/atomisticskills/chem-similarity-search/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/learningmatter-mit/atomisticskills/chem-similarity-search)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/learningmatter-mit/atomisticskills/chem-similarity-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/learningmatter-mit/atomisticskills/chem-similarity-search/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 chem-similarity-search

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/learningmatter-mit/atomisticskills/chem-similarity-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/learningmatter-mit/atomisticskills/chem-similarity-search.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 30 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 627 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. 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 $0.00030 $0.00627
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.00313
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00125
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00063

Measured 9d ago against content hash 5d86e7b3a9d3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

chem-similarity-search scanned grade A with 0 findings 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/similarity_search.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.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.agents/skills/chem-similarity-search/SKILL.md · 66 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 66 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Goal

To programmatically find chemical analogs, alternative precursors, and structurally similar compounds for a given target molecule using PubChem's "fastsimilarity_2d" endpoint. The skill retrieves lists of similar compounds ranked by sequence alignment of their 2D molecular fingerprints, providing CIDs, molecular weights, formulas, and SMILES strings.

Instructions

1. Search by SMILES String

Search for similar compounds by providing the canonical or isomeric SMILES. Adjust the --threshold (similarity cutoff 0-100, default is 95) to widen or narrow the search radius. Higher threshold equals higher similarity. Adjust --max_records to limit the output length.

# Env: base-agent
python .agents/skills/chem-similarity-search/scripts/similarity_search.py \
  --smiles "CC(=O)Oc1ccccc1C(=O)O" \
  --threshold 95 \
  --max_records 5 \
  --outdir research/aspirin_similar \
  --output aspirin_similar.json

2. Search by PubChem CID

Search directly using an exact compound's CID. This avoids translation steps for SMILES parsing.

# Env: base-agent
python .agents/skills/chem-similarity-search/scripts/similarity_search.py \
  --cid 2244 \
  --threshold 90 \
  --max_records 10 \
  --outdir research/aspirin_similar \
  --output cid_2244_similar.json

Examples

We can test extracting highly similar analogs (Threshold 95) for Aspirin (CID: 2244 or SMILES: CC(=O)Oc1ccccc1C(=O)O).

# Env: base-agent
python .agents/skills/chem-similarity-search/scripts/similarity_search.py \
  --cid 2244 \
  --threshold 95 \
  --max_records 5 \
  --outdir .agents/skills/chem-similarity-search/examples/aspirin_analogs \
  --output aspirin_analogs.json

Constraints

  • Rate Limiting: PubChem PUG REST API enforces per-user throttling limits. Heavy bursts will result in HTTP 503 Server Busy errors. The script implements an exponential backoff retry mechanism.
  • 2D Similarity: Uses exact structural bit-vector fingerprints. Stereochemical and 3D properties do not strongly affect the score.
  • Network: Internet access is required.

Read the full file on GitHub · 66 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 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 · 66 lines · 30 tokens per session scan A 5d86e7b3a9d3

Subscribe to this mod's changes

chem-similarity-search is a skill published in the GitHub repository learningmatter-mit/AtomisticSkills (162 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 30 tokens to every session and 627 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

datamol

Pythonic wrapper around RDKit with simplified interface and sensible defaults. Preferred for standard drug discovery including SMILES parsing, standardization, descriptors, fingerprints, clustering, 3D conformers, parallel processing. Returns native rdkit.Chem.Mol objects. For advanced control or custom parameters…

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 67 tokens

rdkit

Cheminformatics toolkit for fine-grained molecular control. SMILES/SDF parsing, descriptors (MW, LogP, TPSA), fingerprints, substructure search, 2D/3D generation, similarity, reactions. For standard workflows with simpler interface, use datamol (wrapper around RDKit). Use rdkit for advanced control, custom…

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 80 tokens

deepchem

Molecular ML with diverse featurizers and pre-built datasets. Use for property prediction (ADMET, toxicity) with traditional ML or GNNs when you want extensive featurization options and MoleculeNet benchmarks. Best for quick experiments with pre-trained models, diverse molecular representations. For graph-first…

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 78 tokens

binding-affinity

Empirical affinity estimates, ligand energy inspection, docking-score consensus, and batch virtual screening. Full MM/GBSA requires a validated external workflow.

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 33 tokens

drug-design

End-to-end drug discovery pipeline orchestration. Deterministic Python script that auto-chains structure prediction, pocket detection, de novo design, docking, scoring, and ADMET filtering into reproducible workflows.

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 44 tokens

molecular-optimization

Iterative lead optimization with analyze-reason-generate-verify-evaluate loop. Paper-backed (MT-Mol, DrugR, MultiMol).

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 34 tokens