Clinvar Database

Part of DeepMind's science skills collection, this gives Claude direct access to ClinVar, NCBI's public database of human genetic variants and their clinical significance. It handles the API setup, optional key management for higher rate limits, and license notifications automatically. You'd reach for this when working on genomics research, variant interpretation, or anything touching clinical genetics data. The skill requires uv and uses proper credential handling for the NCBI API key, which bumps you from 3 to 10 requests per second. It's focused tooling for a specific scientific domain, so unless you're actually querying genetic variants, you won't need it.

skills.sh installs: 2.3K
GitHub stars: 3.4K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add google-deepmind/science-skills --skill clinvar-database --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

ClinVar Database

Prerequisites

uv: Read the uv skill and follow its Setup instructions to ensure uv is installed and on PATH.
User Notification: If .licenses/clinvar_database_LICENSE.txt does not already exist in the workspace root directory then (1) prominently notify the user to check the terms at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/clinvar/, then (2) create the file recording the notification text and timestamp.
.env file: Make sure the .env file exists in your home directory. Create one if it does not exist.
NCBI_API_KEY (optional): Raises the NCBI rate limit from 3 to 10 requests/second. The skill works without it, but a key is recommended if the user plans many queries or encounters a 429 error. You can register for a key for free at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/account/settings/. You MUST use the safe credentials protocol in the credentials skill to check for and request this key if this skill looks relevant to the user's request.