Right, and it doesn't stop at retrieval. The same need runs up the whole analysis stack, and compbio has been building those layers for years (Bioconductor, scanpy, seurat). The trick isn't to reinvent them, it's to teach agents to use them.
How I do it: modules, a skill plus an R/Python template script.
The script templates one analysis, packages and all. The skill says when to fire it and what to watch for. The agent just bends varying inputs to fit, clean columns or messy samples alike, which is the kind of bounded task it's actually good at. Then chain them: Load/QC -> differential expression -> pathway -> plots.
Will better models make harnesses like this unnecessary? For modules, the opposite. They keep your institutional knowledge enforced by construction, not rediscovered on every run, however good the model gets.
New Science Blog: Why has AI advanced faster in coding than in biology?
To agents, bio databases are like cities built before cars—maddening to drive in because they're designed for different traffic.
How do we build infrastructure agents can use?
anthropic.com/research/agent…