mcpbeat

Ensembl Skill

openai/ensembl-skill

Submit compact Ensembl REST API requests for lookup, overlap, cross-reference, and variation endpoints. Use when a user wants concise Ensembl summaries

3k tokens
context cost
the whole folder, loaded on every use
3
files
ships runnable scripts
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
4915
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository
npx skills add https://github.com/openai/plugins --skill ensembl-skill

What comes with it

10 831 bytes besides the instruction
agents/openai.yaml
scripts/rest_request.py

The instruction itself

6 sections, as written by the author

Operating rules

  • Use scripts/rest_request.py for all Ensembl API calls.
  • Use base_url=https://rest.ensembl.org.
  • The script accepts max_items; object lookups usually do not need it, but overlap and xrefs are better with max_items=10.
  • Send JSON-friendly headers such as Accept: application/json and Content-Type: application/json.
  • Re-run requests in long conversations instead of relying on older tool output.
  • Treat displayed ... in tool previews as UI truncation, not part of the true request.

Execution behavior

  • Return concise markdown summaries from the script JSON by default.
  • Return the script JSON verbatim only if the user explicitly asks for machine-readable output.
  • Prefer these paths: lookup/id/<id>, overlap/region/<species>/<region>, xrefs/id/<id>, and variation/<species>/<id>.
  • Use save_raw=true when the user needs the full payload.

Input

  • Read one JSON object from stdin.
  • Required fields: base_url, path
  • Optional fields: method, params, headers, json_body, form_body, record_path, response_format, max_items, max_depth, timeout_sec, save_raw, raw_output_path
  • Common Ensembl patterns:
  • {"base_url":"https://rest.ensembl.org","path":"lookup/id/ENSG00000141510","headers":{"Accept":"application/json","Content-Type":"application/json"}}
  • {"base_url":"https://rest.ensembl.org","path":"overlap/region/homo_sapiens/1:1000000-1002000","params":{"feature":"gene"},"headers":{"Accept":"application/json","Content-Type":"application/json"},"max_items":10}

Output

  • Success returns ok, source, path, method, status_code, warnings, and either compact records or a compact summary.
  • Use raw_output_path when save_raw=true.
  • Failure returns ok=false with error.code and error.message.

Execution

echo '{"base_url":"https://rest.ensembl.org","path":"lookup/id/ENSG00000141510","headers":{"Accept":"application/json","Content-Type":"application/json"}}' | python scripts/rest_request.py

References

  • No additional runtime references are required; keep the import package limited to this file and scripts/rest_request.py.

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take openai/ensembl-skill from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

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.