biorxiv-database

biorxiv-database is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from synthetic-sciences/openscience. It costs 52 tokens per session (3,176 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A search and download tool for bioRxiv, a website where life-science researchers share scientific papers before formal peer review.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to find recent life-science research, retrieve paper details and PDFs, track authors, or support a literature review.
Why use it?
It removes the need to search the site manually and gather paper details one by one. It can organize results by keywords, authors, dates, and research areas.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Not installable on its own: it runs a file from its repository that does not travel with it. Clone the repository, or install whatever ships that file. The line is python tests/test_biorxiv_search.py.

About the project

synthetic-sciences/openscience is an AI workbench that carries out scientific research by reading papers, forming hypotheses, writing and running code, conducting experiments, analyzing results, and preparing reports. Researchers use it for work in machine learning, biology, physics, and chemistry with remote or local models. Catalogue add-ons extend its scientific workflows through skills and instructions.

synthetic-sciences/openscience · 3,473 stars · on GitHub · openscience.sh

Install

Getting it into your agent

There is no command for this one: it runs only inside a plugin, and the catalogue could not identify which plugin ships it. The source is linked below.

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 biorxiv-database

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/synthetic-sciences/openscience/biorxiv-database.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/synthetic-sciences/openscience/biorxiv-database)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/synthetic-sciences/openscience/biorxiv-database"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/synthetic-sciences/openscience/biorxiv-database.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,176 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00052 $0.03176
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.01588
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00635
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00318

Measured 2d ago against content hash 81d1ac16d88c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

biorxiv-database 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 2d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/biorxiv_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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

8 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

backend/cli/skills/databases/biorxiv-database/SKILL.md · 483 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 483 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

bioRxiv Database

Overview

This skill provides efficient Python-based tools for searching and retrieving preprints from the bioRxiv database. It enables comprehensive searches by keywords, authors, date ranges, and categories, returning structured JSON metadata that includes titles, abstracts, DOIs, and citation information. The skill also supports PDF downloads for full-text analysis.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

  • Searching for recent preprints in specific research areas
  • Tracking publications by particular authors
  • Conducting systematic literature reviews
  • Analyzing research trends over time periods
  • Retrieving metadata for citation management
  • Downloading preprint PDFs for analysis
  • Filtering papers by bioRxiv subject categories

Core Search Capabilities

1. Keyword Search

Search for preprints containing specific keywords in titles, abstracts, or author lists.

Basic Usage:

python scripts/biorxiv_search.py \
  --keywords "CRISPR" "gene editing" \
  --start-date 2024-01-01 \
  --end-date 2024-12-31 \
  --output results.json

With Category Filter:

python scripts/biorxiv_search.py \
  --keywords "neural networks" "deep learning" \
  --days-back 180 \
  --category neuroscience \
  --output recent_neuroscience.json

Search Fields: By default, keywords are searched in both title and abstract. Customize with --search-fields:

python scripts/biorxiv_search.py \
  --keywords "AlphaFold" \
  --search-fields title \
  --days-back 365

2. Author Search

Find all papers by a specific author within a date range.

Basic Usage:

python scripts/biorxiv_search.py \
  --author "Smith" \
  --start-date 2023-01-01 \
  --end-date 2024-12-31 \
  --output smith_papers.json

Recent Publications:

# Last year by default if no dates specified
python scripts/biorxiv_search.py \
  --author "Johnson" \
  --output johnson_recent.json

3. Date Range Search

Retrieve all preprints posted within a specific date range.

Read the full file on GitHub · 483 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. 2d ago First seen · 483 lines · 52 tokens per session scan A 81d1ac16d88c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

biorxiv-database is a skill published in the GitHub repository synthetic-sciences/openscience (3,473 stars, last pushed today), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 3,176 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-09-03.

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