Alterlab Blast Agent Skill
Runs NCBI BLAST+ 2.17.0 sequence searches from the command line: makeblastdb (with -parse_seqids), blastn/blastp/blastx/tblastn with tabular -outfmt 6/7 for parsing, correct -task choice (megablast vs blastn vs blastn-short), -taxids/-negative_taxids taxonomic scoping, and -mt_mode multithreading; plus a DIAMOND blastp --ultra-sensitive path for large protein searches. Warns that -max_target_seqs is a heuristic keep-count, not a top-N best-hits filter. Use when the user wants command-line BLAST, makeblastdb, a local BLAST database, blastn/blastp/blastx/tblastn searches, or DIAMOND protein search. For the Bio.Blast web NCBIWWW API prefer alterlab-biopython; for quick one-liner database lookups prefer alterlab-gget. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.
Install
one command, takes just this skill from the repositorynpx skills add https://github.com/AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills --skill alterlab-blastOther skills for the same job
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How to use it
Take alterlab-ieu/alterlab-blast from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.