Embl Ebi Ols

If you're working with biological or medical ontologies, this connects Claude to the EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service, a major resource for standardized terms in life sciences. Part of Google DeepMind's science skills collection, it wraps the OLS API so you can query ontologies without writing custom requests. The setup is strict about using provided utility scripts instead of direct API calls, which is smart for consistency but means you're locked into their approach. It auto-checks the EBI terms of service and logs acceptance in your workspace. Honestly most useful if you're doing bioinformatics or need to validate scientific terminology programmatically. The 2.4K stars on the parent repo suggest the science skills bundle has real traction.

skills.sh installs: 2.2K
GitHub stars: 3.4K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add google-deepmind/science-skills --skill embl-ebi-ols --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service (OLS)

Prerequisites

uv: Read the uv skill and follow its Setup instructions to ensure uv is installed and on PATH.
User Notification: If .licenses/embl_ebi_ols_LICENSE.txt does not already exist in the workspace root directory then (1) prominently notify the user to check the terms at https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/api-docs, then (2) create the file recording the notification text and timestamp.

Core Rules

[!IMPORTANT] Use the Utility Scripts: You MUST ALWAYS use the provided utility script under scripts/ for all API interactions, including checking status. NEVER use curl or custom Python requests to query API directly.
Rate Limiting & Resilience: You MUST respect EBI's Terms of Use with a maximum 5 requests per second. The provided utility scripts automatically enforce this.
Notification: If this skill is used, ensure this is mentioned in the output.