bio-entrez-search

bio-entrez-search is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from PKU-YuanGroup/OpenAI4S. It costs 100 tokens per session (4,385 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of bio-entrez-search, MIT.

A search tool for NCBI databases, which store records such as scientific papers, genes, and DNA sequences. It builds field-specific searches and returns the matching record identifiers for later retrieval.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to find NCBI records by keywords, titles, or searchable fields, check result counts across databases, and prepare large searches for later downloading.
Why use it?
It removes the need to manually search NCBI websites or guess database fields. It also explains that a search returns identifiers first, while the actual records require a separate fetch step.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to find NCBI records by keywords, titles, or searchable fields, check result counts across databases, and prepare large searches for later downloading.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/pku-yuangroup/openai4s/bio-database-access-entrez-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 PKU-YuanGroup/OpenAI4S --skill bio-database-access-entrez-search
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/PKU-YuanGroup/OpenAI4S

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 bio-entrez-search

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pku-yuangroup/openai4s/bio-database-access-entrez-search/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/pku-yuangroup/openai4s/bio-database-access-entrez-search)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pku-yuangroup/openai4s/bio-database-access-entrez-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pku-yuangroup/openai4s/bio-database-access-entrez-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 bio-entrez-search

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pku-yuangroup/openai4s/bio-database-access-entrez-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pku-yuangroup/openai4s/bio-database-access-entrez-search.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 100 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,385 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.
Origin 98% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00100 $0.04385
Opus 5 $0.00050 $0.02193
Sonnet 5 $0.00020 $0.00877
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00439

Measured 9d ago against content hash adaf66eb78b7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

bio-entrez-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 3 executable files (scripts/basic_search.py, scripts/database_info.py, scripts/global_query.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.

Origin

This is a copy

98% identical to bio-entrez-search — 12 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/bioskills/bio-database-access-entrez-search/SKILL.md · 309 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 309 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Version Compatibility

Reference examples tested with: BioPython 1.83+, Entrez Direct 21.0+

Before using code patterns, verify installed versions match. If versions differ:

  • Python: pip show biopython then help(Bio.Entrez.esearch) to check signatures
  • CLI: esearch -version then esearch -help to confirm flags

If code throws ImportError, AttributeError, or TypeError, introspect the installed package and adapt the example to match the actual API rather than retrying.

"Find NCBI records matching a query" -> ESearch returns matching record UIDs (not full records) from one NCBI database; EGQuery returns counts across all databases; EInfo describes a database's searchable fields and update timestamp.

The single most important fact: ESearch returns UIDs (PMIDs, GI numbers, gene IDs, etc.), not records. To get content the agent must call EFetch or ESummary. Forgetting this is the most common Entrez mistake.

  • Python: Entrez.esearch(db=..., term=...) (BioPython)
  • CLI: esearch -db pubmed -query 'CRISPR[Title]' (Entrez Direct, NBK179288)
  • R: entrez_search(db=..., term=...) (rentrez)

Required Setup

from Bio import Entrez
import time

Entrez.email = '[email protected]'  # NCBI requires; sets User-Agent
Entrez.api_key = 'YOUR_KEY'                  # 3 -> 10 req/sec; get at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/account/settings/
Entrez.tool = 'project-name'                 # appears in NCBI usage logs; helps if rate-throttled

What ESearch actually does

ESearch sends the query string through the Entrez Query Translator (EQT), which rewrites unqualified terms into the canonical term[field] form, then runs the rewritten query against the per-database index. The result is a list of UIDs plus a QueryTranslation string showing exactly what was searched. Reproducible work always inspects QueryTranslation and builds queries that are translation-stable from the start.

handle = Entrez.esearch(db='nucleotide', term='human BRCA1')
record = Entrez.read(handle)
handle.close()
print(record['QueryTranslation'])
# '("homo sapiens"[Organism] OR human[All Fields]) AND (BRCA1[Gene Name] OR BRCA1[All Fields])'

Read the full file on GitHub · 309 lines

Files

What ships with it

4 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 · 309 lines · 100 tokens per session scan A adaf66eb78b7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

bio-entrez-search is a skill published in the GitHub repository PKU-YuanGroup/OpenAI4S (407 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 100 tokens to every session and 4,385 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 98% identical to bio-entrez-search, differing in 12 lines, and is treated as a copy.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

boltz-structure-prediction

Boltz-1 / Boltz-2 structure prediction for proteins, complexes, and ligand-aware validation. Use this skill when: (1) Predicting protein complex structures, (2) Validating designed binders, (3) Need open-source alternative to AF2, (4) Predicting protein-ligand complexes, (5) Using local GPU resources. For QC…

zongtingwei/Bioclaw_Skills_Hub · 121 tokens

imaging-data-commons

Query and download public cancer imaging data from NCI Imaging Data Commons using idc-index. Use for accessing large-scale radiology (CT, MR, PET) and pathology datasets for AI training or research. No authentication required. Query by metadata, visualize in browser, check licenses.

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 62 tokens

flow-cytometry-analysis

Complete flow cytometry analysis pipeline. FCS file handling, compensation, manual/automated gating, immunophenotyping, CFSE proliferation analysis, cell cycle analysis (Dean-Jett-Fox), and apoptosis assays. Extends flowio with analytical workflows. For raw FCS parsing only use flowio.

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 67 tokens

scientific-critical-thinking

Evaluate scientific claims and evidence quality. Use for assessing experimental design validity, identifying biases and confounders, applying evidence grading frameworks (GRADE, Cochrane Risk of Bias), or teaching critical analysis. Best for understanding evidence quality, identifying flaws. For formal peer review…

xintaofei/codeg · 63 tokens

cellxgene-census

Query the CELLxGENE Census (61M+ cells) programmatically. Use when you need expression data across tissues, diseases, or cell types from the largest curated single-cell atlas. Best for population-scale queries, reference atlas comparisons. For analyzing your own data use scanpy or scvi-tools.

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 67 tokens

glycobiology

Glycosylation site prediction and glycobiology analysis. N-glycosylation motif finding, O-glycosylation hotspot prediction, glycan structure resources. Lightweight, pure Python. For protein function queries use uniprot-database; for structure analysis use alphafold-database.

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 67 tokens