ols4

Name: ols4 Review
Item: ols4
Rating: 3.0
Author: Aaron Matthews

Skill Development Usable

Works inClaude Code

Usable Scanned — metadata only

OLS4 provides standardized, machine-readable access to 300+ biomedical and life-science ontologies, eliminating custom mappings and reducing data integration…

The EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service (OLS) is a repository giving a single point of access to the latest versions of 300+ biomedical and life-science ontologies. It offers a website, a REST API, and a hosted MCP server, so an AI assistant can search ontology terms, resolve identifiers, and query term hierarchies. Note: OLS performs no OWL reasoning — it assumes loaded ontologies are pre-reasoned.

Resolve gene/protein names to standardized identifiers across databases
Map disease codes between ICD-10, SNOMED, and disease ontologies
Validate and auto-complete phenotype terms in clinical data pipelines

98 starsApache-2.0 (commercial OK)FreeQuick setup

Usable rating — This tool is functional but has notable gaps. Review the evaluation notes below before deploying.

Why it matters

OLS4 provides standardized, machine-readable access to 300+ biomedical and life-science ontologies, eliminating custom mappings and reducing data integration friction across research and clinical informatics pipelines.

Best for

Bioinformaticians, research software engineers, and healthcare IT teams building systems that need consistent terminology resolution and ontology term lookup.

Works in

Claude Code Claude Cowork Claude Chat

Source

https://github.com/EBISPOT/ols4

By EBISPOT

How to Get It

Option 1: Claude Desktop App (Code Mode)Click the + button next to the prompt box → Plugins → Add plugin. Search and click Install. Skills work in Claude Code only.

Option 2: Paste into Claude CodeCopy the command below and paste it into your conversation. Claude will install it.

Command

claude mcp add --transport http ols4 https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/api/mcp

Tip: Paste this into a Claude Code conversation. Verify command matches your Claude Code version.

First thing to try

After installing, paste this into Claude:

Help me resolve gene/protein names to standardized identifiers across databases

CostFree

Trust Signals Auto-scanned

Stars98Contributors20Last updated2026-08-07LicenseApache-2.0 (OK for commercial use)Known CVEsNone foundSources: GitHub Advisory Database + OSV.dev · Scanned 2026-08-11 · scanner vattempted-no-data

Reviewer notes

Auto-scanned review. These are observations, not a security certification.

Scored from trust signals (evidence-eval-v1): 89 GitHub stars; contributors unknown; last commit 0d ago; license Apache-2.0.

Things to check

Scanned, not hands-on tested — this entry was auto-scanned from public metadata (GitHub metrics, license, security flags). No reviewer has run it, and no tool-specific limitations have been documented yet.

How to evaluate tools before deploying →

Data shown here comes from public APIs and automated scanning. Reviewer notes reflect one person's experience. This is not a security certification or legal recommendation. Always evaluate tools according to your own organization's policies.

Evaluation Scores

Evaluation

Ease of Use

3/5

Versatility

3/5

Reliability

3/5

Security

3/5

Overall score3.00 / 5.00 UsableEvaluatedMay 2026

Scored from trust signals (evidence-eval-v1): 89 GitHub stars; contributors unknown; last commit 0d ago; license Apache-2.0.

← Back to the Claude Observatory