tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval

tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval is a skill for Claude Code from mims-harvard/ToolUniverse. It costs 143 tokens per session (3,198 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A tool for finding protein 3D structures in the RCSB Protein Data Bank, PDBe, and AlphaFold. It distinguishes experimentally measured structures from computer-predicted models and reports quality information such as resolution or confidence scores.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to look up structures by protein or accession, compare experimental and predicted models, and assess whether a structure is suitable for further analysis.
Why use it?
It helps you choose an appropriate structure instead of assuming that every available model is equally reliable. This matters when using a structure to study binding, folding, or drug design.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: disable-model-invocation in frontmatter.

Part of the tooluniverse plugin — 162 skills, 8 commands, 1 agent, 1 hook, 1 MCP server shipped together

Good fit Use it to look up structures by protein or accession, compare experimental and predicted models, and assess whether a structure is suitable for further analysis.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/mims-harvard/tooluniverse/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval
About the project

ToolUniverse is a collection of tools, interfaces, and supporting components for building AI systems that perform scientific work. It is for developers creating AI scientist agents that use APIs, databases, machine-learning tools, and domain-specific utilities. The catalogue includes skills, commands, an MCP server, an agent, and a hook for working with the ecosystem.

mims-harvard/ToolUniverse · 1,744 stars · on GitHub · aiscientist.tools

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 mims-harvard/ToolUniverse --skill tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mims-harvard/ToolUniverse

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install tooluniverse, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 162 skills, 8 commands, 1 agent, 1 hook, 1 MCP server.

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 tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mims-harvard/tooluniverse/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mims-harvard/tooluniverse/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mims-harvard/tooluniverse/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mims-harvard/tooluniverse/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval/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 tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mims-harvard/tooluniverse/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mims-harvard/tooluniverse/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 143 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,198 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
  • Socket pass 16 Sept 2026
  • Snyk pass 16 Sept 2026
  • 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 $0.00143 $0.03198
Opus 5.5 $0.00057 $0.01279
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00029 $0.00640
Haiku 4.5 $0.00014 $0.00320

Measured 10d ago against content hash 3a483f7a48f3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval 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 10d ago.

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.

plugin/skills/tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval/SKILL.md · 175 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 175 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Protein Structure Data Retrieval

Retrieve protein structures with disambiguation, quality assessment, and comprehensive metadata.

IMPORTANT: Always use English terms in tool calls. Respond in the user's language.

LOOK UP DON'T GUESS: Never assume PDB IDs, resolution, or availability. Always query RCSB/PDBe and AlphaFold to confirm.

Domain Reasoning

Not all structures are equal. X-ray <2 A is high-quality for drug design. Cryo-EM 3-4 A is good for fold but not side chains. AlphaFold is excellent for well-folded domains but unreliable for disordered regions. Always check pLDDT (AlphaFold) or resolution (experimental) before drawing conclusions.

Workflow

Phase 0: Clarify (if needed) → Phase 1: Disambiguate Protein → Phase 2: Retrieve Structures → Phase 3: Report

Phase 0: Clarification (When Needed)

Ask ONLY if: protein name ambiguous (e.g., "kinase"), organism not specified, unclear if experimental vs AlphaFold needed. Skip for: specific PDB IDs, UniProt accessions, unambiguous protein+organism.


Phase 1: Protein Disambiguation

# By PDB ID: direct retrieval
# By UniProt: get AlphaFold + search experimental structures
af_structure = tu.tools.alphafold_get_prediction(uniprot_id=uniprot_id)
# By protein name: search
result = tu.tools.PDBeSearch_search_structures(query=protein_name)

Identity Checklist

  • Protein name/gene identified, organism confirmed
  • UniProt accession (if available), isoform/variant specified (if relevant)

Phase 2: Data Retrieval (Internal)

Retrieve silently. Do NOT narrate the process.

pdb_id = "4INS"

# Search, metadata, quality, ligands, similar structures
result = tu.tools.PDBeSearch_search_structures(query=name)
metadata = tu.tools.get_protein_metadata_by_pdb_id(pdb_id=pdb_id)
exp = tu.tools.RCSBData_get_entry(pdb_id=pdb_id)
quality = tu.tools.PDBeValidation_get_quality_scores(pdb_id=pdb_id)
ligands = tu.tools.PDBe_get_structure_ligands(pdb_id=pdb_id)  # data.ligands[]
similar = tu.tools.PDB_search_similar_structures(query=pdb_id, search_type="structure")  # data.results[] with rank, score
# By UniProt accession: all PDB entries, and ligand-binding residues across entries
entries = tu.tools.PDBeSIFTS_get_all_structures(uniprot_accession=uniprot_id)  # data.pdb_entries[]
sites = tu.tools.PDBe_KB_get_ligand_sites(uniprot_accession=uniprot_id)  # data.ligands[]

# PDBe additional data
summary = tu.tools.pdbe_get_entry_summary(pdb_id=pdb_id)
molecules = tu.tools.pdbe_get_entry_molecules(pdb_id=pdb_id)

# AlphaFold (when no experimental structure, or for comparison)
af = tu.tools.alphafold_get_prediction(uniprot_id=uniprot_id)

Read the full file on GitHub · 175 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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. 10d ago Changed · +36 lines · +54 tokens per session 3a483f7a48f3
  2. 1mo ago First seen · 139 lines · 89 tokens per session scan A 6a47e69e8177

Subscribe to this mod's changes

tooluniverse-protein-structure-retrieval is a skill published in the GitHub repository mims-harvard/ToolUniverse (1,744 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 143 tokens to every session and 3,198 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5.5. 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 2026-09-03.

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