splicecraft 0.5.8.0

Terminal-based circular plasmid map viewer, sequence editor, and Primer3/Golden Braid primer design workbench

SpliceCraft

A plasmid workbench you live in. SpliceCraft is a terminal-native viewer, sequence editor, primer + mutagenesis designer, Golden Braid / MoClo cloning workbench, and in-process BLAST / HMMscan engine — all rendered as crisp Unicode braille graphics in any modern terminal. Fetch from NCBI, load .gb / .gbk / SnapGene .dna files (single or in bulk), organize plasmids into named collections, design diagnostic / cloning / Golden Braid primers via Primer3, run SOE-PCR site-directed mutagenesis on any CDS, and search your own plasmid library by sequence similarity — without ever leaving the shell.

Built for daily lab work. SpliceCraft is actively maintained by a practicing bioengineer who uses it as their primary day-to-day tool for plasmid design, cloning planning, and sequence triage. Bug reports come from the bench; releases ship from the bench. Every feature has a real-world job.

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Robustness is a feature, not an afterthought

A workbench you trust your day to has to behave like one. SpliceCraft takes data safety and predictable behaviour as first-class design constraints:

• Atomic writes with on-disk backups. Every *.json library file goes through tempfile.mkstemp + os.fsync + os.replace, with the prior version copied to *.json.bak before the new write lands. Mid-process crash, full-disk error, or hand-edit gone wrong — the panel re-loads from .bak on next launch with a corruption-recovery toast.
• Crash-recovery autosave. Dirty edits debounce a 3-second write to a per-record .gb snapshot. Power-cut your laptop mid-edit; the next launch surfaces the survivors.
• 1,200+ tests (pytest -n auto -q, ~3 min on 8 cores) anchored on ten sacred invariants for biology correctness: palindromic-enzyme scanning, reverse-strand coordinate handling, IUPAC reverse-complement including ambiguity codes, wrap-around feature math, atomic-save contract, undo deepcopy, etc. Property-based fuzzing (hypothesis) doubles up on the riskiest ones. Touching the biology primitives trips a test in under two seconds.
• No external BLAST install. pyhmmer ships HMMER 3 source compiled in-wheel; BLASTN, BLASTP, and HMMscan all run in-process via nhmmer / phmmer / hmmscan, with a pure-Python ungapped fallback for queries too short for HMMER's profile builder. Zero external binaries; no PATH gymnastics.
• Hardened input boundaries. Centralised sanitisers strip control characters and Rich-markup metacharacters at every user-input boundary (modals, agent-API endpoints, NCBI fetch, bulk-import filenames). A hostile filename like [red]EVIL[/red].dna imports cleanly and renders as the literal characters in the panel and notifications. Modal-active gating keeps seq-cursor moves and selection slides from firing underneath active modals; CDS-divisibility gating prevents nonsensical AA strips on non-triple features; resite cuts carry baked per-strand offsets (no legacy schema crashes).
• Refusal to start in a tiny terminal. Below 100×30, SpliceCraft prints a friendly resize-and-retry message and exits with code 2 rather than rendering a clipped, broken UI.
• Bulk-import with per-file failure isolation. The bulk SnapGene / GenBank importer caps per-file size at 50 MB, skips zero-length records, catches OSError / PermissionError / struct.error per-file, and dedups colliding ids by suffix. One bad file in a 500-plasmid archive does not abort the batch.
• Drift defenses. Future-version JSON schemas load with a warning and a .bak rotation rather than crashing. Legacy schemas auto- rewrite on the next save. Migration code runs idempotently in App.compose() before any child mounts so the panel always sees a consistent state.

⚠️ Beta software. SpliceCraft is under active development; the UI, on-disk file formats, and agent-API surface may evolve between releases. Your data files are auto-backed up to *.bak on every save, but please keep your own off-disk copies of anything critical. The maintainer treats it as their primary workbench — but it should not yet be a project's sole system of record.

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Quick start

pipx install splicecraft
splicecraft                      # empty canvas
splicecraft L09137               # fetch pUC19 from NCBI on launch
splicecraft myplasmid.gb         # local GenBank (.gb/.gbk) or SnapGene (.dna) file

pipx creates an isolated virtual environment for SpliceCraft and its dependencies, so it won't clash with system Python packages. If you don't have pipx yet: sudo apt install pipx on Debian/Ubuntu/WSL2, brew install pipx on macOS, or python -m pip install --user pipx elsewhere. User data lives in the platform-appropriate data directory (see Installation).

Press ? once running for the full keyboard-shortcut reference.

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What you can do without leaving the terminal

View

• Braille dot-matrix circular maps — plasmids rendered as crisp Unicode braille rings with per-strand feature arcs, directional arrowheads, and proximity-placed labels. v toggles linear view.
• Per-base sequence panel with two-strand display, wrap-aware feature lanes, restriction-site overlays, and inline AA translation (one letter per codon midpoint, in the CDS's colour, with wrap-CDS support across the origin). Click an AA letter to highlight the codon's three bases on the strand.
• Per-strand restriction-cut visualisation — clicking a sticky cutter (EcoRI, HindIII, BsaI, BsmBI, BbsI, …) tints upstream bases blue and downstream red, with the staggered overhang showing as different colours on the two strands.
• 200+ NEB enzymes including Type IIS scanners; toggle restriction overlays with r, filter to unique cutters / 6+ bp / connectors.

Edit

• In-place sequence edits with full undo / redo (50-deep snapshot stack, deepcopied SeqRecord). Per-plasmid undo stashes — switch records, edit, switch back, undo history is restored.
• Feature CRUD: add / merge / split / delete / rename / recolor features; clipboard copies (top strand or reverse-complement bottom strand). Mouse-drag selects ranges; Enter highlights the smallest feature enclosing the cursor.
• Crash-recovery autosave writes a 3-second-debounced .gb snapshot to the data dir; survivors surface on next launch.

Cloning

• Cloning grammars — GB L0 (Esp3I) and MoClo Plant (BsaI) ship as built-ins; user-defined grammars persist to cloning_grammars.json and are editable in GrammarEditorModal. The active grammar parameterises the Domesticator, Parts Bin, and Constructor — change enzyme / overhang / forbidden-site set without code edits.
• Domesticator — 4-source part picker (current map, library, Parts Bin, FASTA file). Auto-scrubs forbidden Type IIS sites in the CDS body via codon swap with cascade-prevention; primer tails follow the active grammar's pad / site / spacer / overhang.
• Parts Bin — domesticated parts catalog with per-grammar filtering; legacy parts default to GB L0; "Copy primed sequence" preserves the part's stored grammar.
• Constructor — assembly UI for chaining L0 parts into a TU.
• Primer design — detection / cloning / Golden Braid / generic via Primer3; primers can be added to the map as primer_bind features or saved to the persistent primer library (Designed → Ordered → Validated lifecycle).

Mutagenesis

• SOE-PCR site-directed mutagenesis — design 4-primer SOE sets for any W140F-style point mutation. CDS source can be the loaded plasmid, a library entry, a Parts Bin part, or a free-form protein sequence (auto-optimised via the active codon table). Edge cases (mutation within 60 nt of a CDS end) auto-fall back to a 2-primer modified-outer PCR.

Search

• In-process BLAST (Ctrl+B):
  • BLASTN (DNA → DNA) and BLASTP (protein → protein) via pyhmmer.hmmer.nhmmer / phmmer (HMMER 3 in-process at C speed); pure-Python ungapped fallback for queries below the HMMER profile- builder minimum (20 bp / 6 aa).
  • HMMscan reads any HMMER 3 .hmm / .h3m / .h3p file directly — point it at Pfam-A or any custom profile DB. Lazy file read so Pfam-scale (~1 GB) DBs don't pre-fetch into RAM.
  • DB build + search run in a @work(thread=True) worker; UI stays responsive on a 50-plasmid index. 4-entry LRU DB cache, auto- invalidated on _save_collections.
• Six-frame ORF indexing (opt-in checkbox) for BLASTP against unannotated regions of plasmid backbones.
• New Plasmid modal (Ctrl+N) — paste a sequence, optionally name
  • set topology, then either Create / Annotate-from-library (substring match) / Annotate-via-BLAST (≥90% identity → misc_feature).

Library

• Plasmid collections — named buckets (e.g. "yeast project", "E. coli toolkit"); the panel toggles between a collection list and the active collection's plasmids. Atomic writes, .bak per change. Save the loaded record with Ctrl+Shift+A.
• Bulk import a folder — from the collections-list view, click +, type a name, and pick a folder via the embedded directory tree. Every .dna / .gb / .gbk / .genbank file inside is loaded independently into a new collection; failures are isolated per file and surfaced in a notify summary. Designed for migrating a SnapGene archive in one shot.
• Library fuzzy search — subsequence match (case-insensitive, non-contiguous) against the visible table.
• Feature library — reusable feature snippets (per-entry colour and strand) with a centralised browse / edit / rename / recolor / delete workbench.

Drive it from outside the GUI

• Agent API (splicecraft --agent-api) exposes a localhost JSON API with bearer-token auth, covering every GUI action external AI agents need: get / set sequence, list features, add / update / delete features, export GenBank / FASTA, list library / collections, scan restriction sites, look up codon tables, optimize protein sequences, load files (chromosome-scale safe via the path-based loader).
• splicecraft-cli — stdlib-only sidecar (~50 ms cold start) that reads connection details from ~/.local/share/splicecraft/agent_token and drives the running GUI. Intended for Claude Code, Cursor, aider, hand-rolled scripts, or any external automation.

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Installation

Requires Python 3.10+ and a terminal of at least 100×30.

With pipx (recommended)

pipx install splicecraft

pipx installs SpliceCraft and its deps (Textual, Biopython, primer3-py, platformdirs, pyhmmer) into an isolated virtual environment and places the splicecraft command on your PATH. This is the right approach on modern Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and WSL2, where pip install into the system Python is blocked by PEP 668.

If you don't already have pipx:

sudo apt install pipx                # Debian / Ubuntu / WSL2
brew install pipx                    # macOS
python -m pip install --user pipx    # everywhere else
pipx ensurepath                      # one-time; adds ~/.local/bin to PATH

With pip inside a venv

python3 -m venv ~/.venvs/splicecraft
~/.venvs/splicecraft/bin/pip install splicecraft
~/.venvs/splicecraft/bin/splicecraft

(Plain pip install splicecraft into system Python works on older distros and inside conda envs, but is rejected by PEP 668 on any recent Debian-family system — use pipx or a venv instead.)

From source

git clone https://github.com/Binomica-Labs/SpliceCraft.git
cd SpliceCraft
pip install -e .                     # inside a venv

User data location

User data (collections, library, parts, primers, features, codon tables, settings) lives in the platform-appropriate data directory:

Platform	Path
Linux	~/.local/share/splicecraft/
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/splicecraft/
Windows	%APPDATA%\splicecraft\

Override with SPLICECRAFT_DATA_DIR=/path/to/dir splicecraft.

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Key bindings

Press ? in-app for the full reference (rendered via Markdown so you can drag-select a key combo to copy it).

Main screen

Key	Description
[ / ]	Rotate map origin left / right (when map focused)
← / →	Same as [ / ] (when map focused)
↑	Reset origin to 0 (when map focused)
Shift+[/]	Rotate coarse (10× step)
, / .	Circular map aspect wider / taller
v	Toggle circular ↔ linear map
l	Toggle feature label connector lines
r	Toggle restriction-site overlay
f	Fetch a record from NCBI by accession
Ctrl+O	Open a .gb / .gbk / .dna file from disk
Ctrl+N	New Plasmid (paste sequence + optional annotate)
Ctrl+B	BLAST modal (BLASTN / BLASTP / HMMscan)
Ctrl+Shift+A	Add current plasmid to the library
Ctrl+A	Select-all sequence
Ctrl+E	Enter sequence editor mode
Ctrl+S	Save edits to file
Ctrl+F	Add a new feature (from cursor or blank)
Ctrl+Shift+F	Capture selection / feature → Feature library
Ctrl+P	Primer Design workbench
Enter	Highlight the feature enclosing the seq cursor
Delete	Context-aware delete (feature or library entry)
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y	Redo
Ctrl+C	Copy selection (top strand 5'→3', or AA when CDS highlighted)
Alt+C	Copy selection (bottom strand, reverse-complement)
Alt+D	Toggle hover-status diagnostic row
?	Help modal
Ctrl+Q	Quit

Mouse

Action	Description
Click DNA row	Place cursor at that base
Click feature bar	Highlight the feature, set cursor at its 5' end
Click AA letter	Highlight that codon's three bases on the strand
Click restriction site	Highlight recognition span; tint upstream blue / downstream red per strand
Double-click	Select full feature span
Drag	Select a sequence range
Scroll wheel	Rotate map (when over map panel)
Click backbone	Clear all panel highlights

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Menus

Menu	Items
File	Open · Fetch from NCBI · New Plasmid · Add to Library · Save · Export GenBank · Collections · Quit
Edit	Edit Sequence · Undo · Redo · Add Feature · Capture → feat-lib · Delete Feature
Enzymes	Show RE sites · Unique cutters · 6+/4+ bp sites · Connectors
Features	Feature Library workbench
Primers	Full-screen Primer Design workbench
Mutagenize	SOE-PCR site-directed mutagenesis designer (4-source CDS picker)
Parts	Parts Bin (per-grammar)
Constructor	Assembly Constructor for TU building
BLAST	BLAST / HMMscan modal

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Data files

All user data persists as human-readable JSON in the user data directory; every save is atomic and writes a .bak first.

File	Purpose
collections.json	Named collections of plasmids — source of truth
plasmid_library.json	Live mirror of the active collection's plasmids
parts_bin.json	User-domesticated cloning parts
primers.json	Designed primer library
features.json	Reusable feature snippets
feature_colors.json	Per-type feature color overrides
codon_tables.json	Cached codon-usage tables fetched from Kazusa
cloning_grammars.json	User-defined cloning grammars (Golden Braid / MoClo / custom)
settings.json	App preferences (active collection, active grammar, …)
crash_recovery/*.gb	Per-record crash-recovery autosaves
*.json.bak	Automatic backup — written before each save

The schema envelope ({"_schema_version": 1, "entries": [...]}) silently accepts the legacy bare-list format (pre-0.3.1) and rewrites it on the next save. Newer-version files load with a warning rather than crashing.

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Tests

python3 -m pytest -n auto -q                  # full suite (~3 min on 8 cores)
python3 -m pytest tests/test_dna_sanity.py    # biology correctness only (< 2 s)
python3 -m pytest tests/test_invariants_hypothesis.py  # property-based fuzzing

All tests run offline against synthetic SeqRecords and monkeypatched data paths; an autouse fixture in tests/conftest.py guarantees no test can write to real user files.

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Codebase tour

SpliceCraft is a single-file Python app (splicecraft.py, ~23,000 lines) on Textual + Biopython. The single-file layout is intentional — no import puzzles, everything is greppable from one place.

grep -n "^class \|^def " splicecraft.py gives an authoritative live map. Test files are 1:1 named after the subsystem they cover.

CLAUDE.md at the repo root is the agent + contributor handover document: ten sacred invariants, error-handling convention, known pitfalls. Read it before touching the rendering layer, record pipeline, or primer design.

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Maintenance

SpliceCraft is actively maintained. The maintainer is a practicing bioengineer running real cloning workflows in it daily; releases typically go out the same week a problem surfaces at the bench. Issues and PRs welcome at github.com/Binomica-Labs/SpliceCraft/issues.

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License

MIT