Tamarind Bio

Tamarind Bio is a cloud platform that runs computational biology tools — structure prediction, protein and antibody design, docking, binding-affinity, MSA generation, and molecular dynamics — on managed GPUs. Users submit sequences or structures and get back predicted structures, designs, and biophysical scores, without provisioning their own hardware. It exposes hundreds of tools (AlphaFold, Boltz-2, Chai-1, RFdiffusion, ProteinMPNN, BoltzGen, ESMFold2, DiffDock, Autodock Vina, and many more) through one uniform job API.

Official docs: app.tamarind.bio/api-docs · platform UI at app.tamarind.bio

Canonical sources — fetch these, don't rely on a stale copy

Tamarind publishes live, machine-readable sources. Prefer fetching them at runtime over trusting any hardcoded list — tool names, schemas, and endpoints change frequently:

• https://app.tamarind.bio/llms.txt — LLM index: links to the spec, API docs, and MCP guide.
• https://app.tamarind.bio/openapi.yaml — OpenAPI 3.0 spec for the 8 core job endpoints (submit-job/-batch, jobs, result, upload, files, delete-job/-file; auth ApiKeyAuth). Fetch it for those exact shapes. Discovery/management endpoints (/tools, /usage-statistics, pipelines, …) aren't in it — use the MCP/REST discovery tools for those.
• https://docs.tamarind.bio/llms.txt — documentation index; every page has a .md form (e.g. docs.tamarind.bio/tamarind/batch.md, /tamarind/api.md, /tamarind/pipelines.md).
• Live tool discovery — GET /tools (REST) or MCP getAvailableTools + getJobSchema(jobType) are the source of truth for what tools exist and their parameters.

This skill teaches the surface + the non-obvious behaviors those sources don't spell out (see the reference files). When in doubt about a shape, fetch openapi.yaml.

When to use this skill

Use Tamarind when the user wants to:

• Predict structure of a protein, complex, or protein-ligand system (AlphaFold, Boltz-2, Chai-1, ESMFold2, Chai/Boltz cofolding)
• Design proteins or binders (RFdiffusion, BoltzGen, BindCraft, ProteinMPNN/LigandMPNN inverse folding)
• Design or characterize antibodies/nanobodies (sequence generation, humanization, developability, immunogenicity)
• Dock small molecules to a protein (DiffDock, Autodock Vina) or predict binding affinity
• Generate MSAs for downstream folding
• Run molecular dynamics or other biophysical workflows on managed GPUs
• Batch-screen many sequences or designs through the same tool
• Chain tools into pipelines (e.g. design → fold → score) using the output of one job as the input of the next

This skill is the right fit when the work should run on Tamarind's managed cloud rather than on a local install. For purely local cheminformatics or one-off sequence I/O, use a local library (RDKit, BioPython) instead.

Access and authentication

1. Sign in at app.tamarind.bio and create an API key from the account/API settings.
2. Authenticate every REST request with the x-api-key header.
3. Never hardcode the key. Read it from the TAMARIND_API_KEY environment variable or a .env file (use python-dotenv). Never commit keys to source control.

Pricing: Every user gets 10 free jobs. For larger usage, contact [email protected] to purchase a subscription.

export TAMARIND_API_KEY="your_api_key"
# List available tools
curl https://app.tamarind.bio/api/tools \
  -H "x-api-key: $TAMARIND_API_KEY"

Base URL: https://app.tamarind.bio/api/

There is no official Python SDK — the PyPI package named tamarind is an unrelated Neo4j tool. Do not pip install tamarind. Write plain requests calls against the REST API (the endpoint shapes are in openapi.yaml), or use the MCP server for agent hosts.

Two ways to call Tamarind

MCP server (best for AI agents)

Tamarind hosts an MCP server at https://mcp.tamarind.bio/mcp (API-key auth via the X-API-Key header). When your agent host supports MCP, prefer it — the tools mirror the REST API with agent-friendly schemas:

• listModalities() / listTags() — the live filter vocabulary (molecule type / function) with labels + tool counts; call these to learn valid modality/function values instead of hardcoding
• getAvailableTools(modality?, function?, search?, custom?) — discover tools (category/tag are deprecated aliases still honored)
• getJobSchema(jobType) — exact parameter schema for a tool, plus an exampleJob starting payload (validate it before submitting)
• validateJob(jobName, type, settings) — dry-run validation before submitting
• submitJob(jobName, type, settings) / submitBatch(batchName, type, settings[], jobNames[])
• getJobs(jobName?, batch?, limit?, includeSequences?) — list/inspect jobs and statuses (the bulky per-job input blob is omitted by default; pass includeSequences=true to keep it)
• getJobLogs(jobName) — fetch output logs for debugging
• listJobFiles(jobName) — list output files (returns s3Path for chaining)
• getResult(jobName, fileName?) — download results
• uploadFile(filename) — presigned upload URL; or uploadFileContent(filename, content, encoding?) to send file content through MCP when the host can't reach S3 (sandboxed agents)

Scope note: MCP query tools (getJobs, getResult, listJobFiles, …) are scoped to the authenticated account.

REST API (universal)

Use plain HTTP with requests — the endpoint shapes are in openapi.yaml. The core loop is below; references/workflows.md has full recipes.

Core workflow

Always follow discover → schema → validate → submit → poll → results. Do not hardcode tool names or settings — the catalog changes frequently.

import os, time, requests

BASE = "https://app.tamarind.bio/api"
HEADERS = {"x-api-key": os.environ["TAMARIND_API_KEY"]}

# 1. Discover tools. REST /tools returns the full list; filter client-side.
tools = requests.get(f"{BASE}/tools", headers=HEADERS).json()
alphafold = next(t for t in tools if t["name"] == "alphafold")

# 2. Get the exact schema for the chosen tool.
#    REST: each /tools entry already includes its inline `settings` schema
#          (parameter list) — find the entry whose name == your job type.
#    MCP:  getJobSchema(jobType) returns the same per-tool detail.

# 3. Submit a job. `settings` is tool-specific — match the schema exactly.
payload = {
    "jobName": "my-alphafold-run",          # ^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$, <=100 chars, unique
    "type": "alphafold",
    "settings": {
        "sequence": "MKTVRQERLKSIVRILERSKEPVSGAQLAEELSVSRQVIVQDIAYLRSLGYNIVATPRGYVLAGG",
        "numRecycles": 3,
    },
}
resp = requests.post(f"{BASE}/submit-job", headers=HEADERS, json=payload)
resp.raise_for_status()   # 200 ok; 400 bad request; 403 budget exceeded; 401 unauthorized

# 4. Poll for completion.
#    NOTE the response shape: GET /jobs?jobName=<name> returns the job ROW
#    directly (no "jobs" wrapper); the list query (no jobName) returns
#    {"jobs": [...]}. Don't index ["jobs"][0] on the by-name response.
while True:
    job = requests.get(f"{BASE}/jobs", headers=HEADERS,
                       params={"jobName": "my-alphafold-run"}).json()
    if job["JobStatus"] in ("Complete", "Stopped", "Deleted"):
        break
    time.sleep(30)

# 5. Retrieve results. POST /result returns a presigned URL *string*;
#    GET that URL to download the actual results zip (two-step).
url = requests.post(f"{BASE}/result", headers=HEADERS,
                    json={"jobName": "my-alphafold-run"}).text.strip('"')
open("my-alphafold-run.zip", "wb").write(requests.get(url).content)

For the agentic version of this loop using MCP tools, and for richer examples, see references/workflows.md.

Discovering tools

The catalog has hundreds of tools. Always enumerate at runtime — never rely on a hardcoded list.