biofetch-cli 1.0.1

Unified NCBI · UniProt · PDB CLI fetcher with local caching

BioFetch 🧬

Unified NCBI · UniProt · PDB CLI fetcher with local caching

BioFetch is a cross-platform Python CLI tool that lets you search, fetch, and save biological records from NCBI, UniProt, and RCSB PDB — all from your terminal, with smart local caching so you never hit the same API twice.

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Features

• Fetch sequences and structures by accession from NCBI, UniProt, or PDB
• Search all three databases with ranked results tables
• Info panel — rich metadata without downloading the full file
• Batch download hundreds of records with rate limiting and progress bar
• Local cache — results stored on disk (7-day TTL by default), instant repeat lookups
• Multiple formats — FASTA, GenBank, JSON, XML, PDB, mmCIF, TSV
• Beautiful terminal output powered by Rich
• No conda, no virtual environments needed — pure pip

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Installation

pip install biofetch-cli

Or install from source:

git clone https://github.com/yourname/biofetch.git
cd biofetch
pip install -e .

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Quick Start

# Fetch a nucleotide sequence from NCBI
biofetch fetch NM_001301717 --source ncbi

# Fetch a UniProt protein entry with metadata info panel
biofetch fetch P68871 --source uniprot --info

# Fetch a PDB structure as a .pdb file
biofetch fetch 1HHO --source pdb --format pdb --output 1HHO.pdb

# Search UniProt for hemoglobin (Swiss-Prot reviewed only)
biofetch search "hemoglobin" --source uniprot --reviewed --limit 5

# Search NCBI nucleotide database
biofetch search "BRCA1 human mRNA" --source ncbi --db nucleotide --limit 10

# Search PDB for insulin structures
biofetch search "insulin" --source pdb --limit 5

# Get rich metadata for a UniProt entry
biofetch info P68871 --source uniprot

# Get PDB entry summary
biofetch info 1HHO --source pdb

# Batch fetch multiple accessions
biofetch batch P68871 P69905 P68873 --source uniprot --outdir ./sequences

# Batch fetch NCBI records
biofetch batch NM_001301717 NM_000546 --source ncbi --db nucleotide --outdir ./data

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Commands

Command	Description
biofetch fetch <ID>	Fetch a single record
biofetch search <query>	Search a database
biofetch info <ID>	Show metadata summary
biofetch batch <IDs...>	Batch fetch and save
biofetch cache stats	Show cache size and count
biofetch cache list	List all cached keys
biofetch cache clear	Clear the entire cache
biofetch cache delete <ID>	Remove a specific cached entry
biofetch version	Print version

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Fetch Options

Flag	Description
--source / -s	ncbi, uniprot, or pdb
--format / -f	fasta, genbank, json, xml, pdb, cif, tsv
--db	NCBI database: nucleotide, protein, gene, pubmed
--output / -o	Save to file path
--info / -i	Show metadata panel
--no-preview	Skip terminal sequence preview
--no-cache	Force fresh API request

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Cache

BioFetch caches all responses locally:

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\biofetch\
• Linux/Mac: ~/.cache/biofetch/

Default TTL is 7 days. Manage cache with the biofetch cache subcommands.

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Dependencies

Package	Purpose
biopython	NCBI Entrez, sequence parsing
requests	UniProt & PDB REST APIs
diskcache	Local disk-based caching
rich	Terminal formatting & tables
typer	CLI framework

All installable with pip — no conda, no virtual environment required.

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License

MIT