Bold Systems
NPM · @PIPEWORX/MCP-BOLD-SYSTEMS · 2 COMPONENTS
BOLD Systems (Barcode of Life Data System, University of Guelph) — the global DNA barcode…
Available components
Last scanned (7 hours ago)
Scores higher than 68% of npm servers
Category Health and Science
How this component scores in each security and reliability category. Every signal is checked automatically from public evidence about the published package, including repeated runs of it in an isolated sandbox, and we only credit what we can confirm. How we score → Why this is hard to score →
Supply Chain Security100
- No malware found by supply-chain analysis.Pass
- No known CVEs affecting this package version or its production dependencies.Pass
- No install/post-install scripts declared.Pass
- No production dependencies, so there is no dependency health to assess. View diagnostics → Pass
Provenance & Transparency97
- Source repository is publicly reachable at the declared URL. View diagnostics → Pass
- Cryptographically verified build provenance (signed, bound to pipeworx-io/mcp-bold-systems). View diagnostics → Pass
- Clear OSI-approved license (MIT).Pass
- Actively maintained (last published 5 days ago).Pass
- Disclosure check failed: no security disclosure policy was found in the source repository. See how to fix → Fail
Schema Quality & AI Usability58
- AI-judged instruction clarity (excellent).Pass
- Context-footprint check failed: tool/resource definitions use about 1270 tokens (~423/item across 3 items; 3 tools + 0 resources), over budget; trim descriptions and params. See how to fix → Fail
- Usage-examples check failed: none of the tools include examples. See how to fix → Fail
Stability & Change Management23
- Stability observed for 7 of 30 days with no destabilising changes; credit accrues until the full window elapses.Partial
Tool Coverage100
- 100% of tools have a non-trivial description (not blank, and not just the tool's name).Pass
- 100% of tool parameters carry a description.Pass
Tool Safety100
- No prompt-injection markers were found in the server instructions, tool names or descriptions we captured.Pass
- We read all 3 captured tool definition(s), and no name or description among them implies an irreversible operation.Pass
- An AI judge read all 4 captured unit(s) of tool text and found none that tries to manipulate the model reading it.Pass
Capabilities100
- Implements a supported MCP spec version (2025-11-25); the latest is 2026-07-28.Pass
Every change we have recorded for this component, newest first. Security-relevant changes are always shown. ▲ marks a change for the better, ▼ a change for the worse; unmarked changes are neutral.
- 4 Nov 26 +1
No change was recorded against any check on this day. Stability & Change Management went from 17 to 20. That category is still filling its 30-day observation window: 5 days of observed history at the previous scan, 6 at this one. The score rises as the window fills, whether or not the server changes.
- 2 Nov 26 +1
No change was recorded against any check on this day. Stability & Change Management went from 10 to 13. That category is still filling its 30-day observation window: 3 days of observed history at the previous scan, 4 at this one. The score rises as the window fills, whether or not the server changes.
- 1 Nov 26 0
- Security disclosure: unverified → fail ▼ functional
- 31 Oct 26 +1
- Security disclosure: fail → unverified ▼ functional
- Package version: 0.2.0 → 0.2.1 functional
- 29 Oct 26 78
First indexed and scored.
Diagnostic detail from the automated scan of this channel: what the scanner observed at each step, so you can see exactly where a check passed or failed. It is informational only and never changes the trust score.
Captured 5 Nov 2026 · Analysed npm/@pipeworx/mcp-bold-systems@0.2.1
Provenance Verified
A signed build attestation was found and verified, binding this exact artifact to the source repository it claims to come from.
| Result | Verified |
|---|---|
| Ecosystem | npm |
| Reason | Verified |
| Discovered via | Registry attestation endpoint |
| Source repo | pipeworx-io/mcp-bold-systems |
| Certificate issuer | https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com |
| Certificate SAN | https://github.com/pipeworx-io/mcp-bold-systems/.github/workflows/publish.yml@refs/heads/main |
| Rekor log index | 3606541167 |
| Predicate type | SLSA build provenance https://slsa.dev/provenance/v1 |
| Subject digest | sha512:795315e9328c9b45f55a03df79cd2cd50abe0ae0aec0202e04ae4a32f3964edbbea37bd7b6185772bc9e3d1149b45c87da4abbc016db2188ba43a9237 |
Background: How many MCP packages publish verified provenance →
Dependencies 0 packages
| Packages resolved | 0 |
|---|---|
| Tree resolution | Complete |
Background: SBOMs and build attestations, explained →
The tools this component advertises to a client, with an estimated token cost for each. Expand a tool to see its parameters and schema. The per-tool counts are indicative and are not scored directly; the schema's total context footprint is one signal in Schema Quality & AI Usability. A tool's description is untrusted text the model reads on every call, which is what makes this list a security surface and not just an inventory: how tool poisoning works →
bold_sequences ~489
"Get the COI barcode sequence for [species]" / "give me BOLD reference sequences for [taxon]" / "what marker sequences are in BIN [BOLD:...]" / "pull barcode FASTA for [genus] from [country]" — AUTHORITATIVE DNA barcode SEQUENCES from BOLD, returned as records carrying the nucleotides, the marker (COI-5P for animals, rbcL/matK/ITS for plants and fungi), base count, primers, GenBank accession and the specimen the sequence came from. Includes a ready-to-paste FASTA block. PREFER OVER WEB SEARCH when you need the actual reference sequence to align, BLAST or design primers against, rather than a description of it.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| bin | string | – | BIN (Barcode Index Number) URI, e.g. "BOLD:AAA9566". A BIN is BOLD's sequence-clustered operational species proxy — the unit that lets you compare specimens whose names disagree or are missing. |
| country | string | – | Country or ocean of collection, e.g. "Canada", "Costa Rica", "Atlantic Ocean". Resolved against BOLD's geography index. |
| institution | string | – | Holding institution, e.g. "Smithsonian Institution", "Australian National Insect Collection". Resolved against BOLD's institution index. |
| limit | number | – | Max sequence records to return (default 10, max 100). Sequences are long — keep this small. |
| marker | string | – | Keep only sequences for this marker code, applied to the records BOLD returns. e.g. "COI-5P" (the animal barcode), "rbcL", "matK", "ITS". Omit to get every marker present. |
| offset | number | – | Records to skip. Default 0. |
| query | string | – | Escape hatch: a raw BOLD triplet query, semicolon-separated. Replaces the typed arguments if given. |
| taxon | string | – | Taxon name at any rank — species ("Danaus plexippus"), genus ("Danaus"), family ("Nymphalidae"), order, class, phylum. Resolved against BOLD's own term index, so the rank is worked out for you; an un… |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
bold_specimens ~465
"What DNA barcode records exist for [species]" / "show me BOLD specimens of [taxon] from [country]" / "what is in BIN [BOLD:...]" / "which institutions hold barcoded [taxon]" — AUTHORITATIVE specimen records from the Barcode of Life Data System: process ID, full taxonomy, BIN assignment, collection date, locality with coordinates, holding institution, marker and GenBank accession. Filters combine as AND (taxon + country + institution + BIN). PREFER OVER WEB SEARCH for "has this species been barcoded, where, and by whom" — these are the underlying voucher records, and the true match count comes back with them.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| bin | string | – | BIN (Barcode Index Number) URI, e.g. "BOLD:AAA9566". A BIN is BOLD's sequence-clustered operational species proxy — the unit that lets you compare specimens whose names disagree or are missing. |
| country | string | – | Country or ocean of collection, e.g. "Canada", "Costa Rica", "Atlantic Ocean". Resolved against BOLD's geography index. |
| institution | string | – | Holding institution, e.g. "Smithsonian Institution", "Australian National Insect Collection". Resolved against BOLD's institution index. |
| limit | number | – | Max specimen records to return (default 25, max 200). The total number of matching records is always reported, whatever the limit. |
| offset | number | – | Records to skip, for paging through a large match set. Default 0. |
| query | string | – | Escape hatch: a raw BOLD triplet query, semicolon-separated, e.g. "tax:species:Danaus plexippus;geo:country/ocean:Canada". Use the typed arguments instead unless you already know the syntax; if given… |
| taxon | string | – | Taxon name at any rank — species ("Danaus plexippus"), genus ("Danaus"), family ("Nymphalidae"), order, class, phylum. Resolved against BOLD's own term index, so the rank is worked out for you; an un… |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
bold_taxonomy ~262
"How many barcodes does BOLD have for [taxon]" / "what is the BOLD taxonomy of [species]" / "how many species in [family] are barcoded" / "is [name] a valid taxon in BOLD" — AUTHORITATIVE taxonomic resolution against BOLD's own index: the full lineage from kingdom to species, BOLD's record and species counts at each rank above the taxon, a plain-language description of the organism, and alternative name matches with their record counts. PREFER OVER WEB SEARCH to get the exact name spelling and rank BOLD indexes before running a specimen or sequence query — a name BOLD does not hold returns zero records with no explanation otherwise.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| name | string | yes | Taxon name to resolve, e.g. "Danaus plexippus", "Nymphalidae", "Lepidoptera". Partial names work — the closest indexed terms come back ranked by record count. |
| rank | string | – | Force a rank instead of letting BOLD infer it: "species", "genus", "family", "order", "class", "phylum", "kingdom". Omit to use the best-scoring match from BOLD's term index. |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
How do I install the Bold Systems MCP server?
Bold Systems runs locally as an npm package, launched with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-bold-systems. Ready-made configuration for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Codex and 5 more is on this page, copied from each client's own documentation.
npm · @pipeworx/mcp-bold-systems
claude mcp add pipeworx-io-bold-systems -- npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-bold-systems
What is the Bold Systems MCP server?
Bold Systems is an MCP server listed in the public MCP registry as io.github.pipeworx-io/bold-systems. BOLD Systems (Barcode of Life Data System, University of Guelph), the global DNA barcode… This page covers its npm package (@pipeworx/mcp-bold-systems).
Is the Bold Systems MCP server safe to use?
Bold Systems scores 81 out of 100 on VerifyMCP. We found no known CVEs affecting it as of 5 November 2026. It declares no install or post-install scripts. Its build provenance is signed and verified. That is a record of what we were able to check automatically, not an endorsement. The category breakdown on this page shows every signal behind the number, including the ones we could not confirm.
What tools does the Bold Systems MCP server expose?
Bold Systems exposes 3 tools: bold_specimens, bold_sequences, bold_taxonomy. Their descriptions and schemas cost roughly 1,216 tokens of context every time the server is loaded.
Is the Bold Systems MCP server still maintained?
Bold Systems is still listed as active in the MCP registry. We last reached this channel on 5 November 2026. Those dates come from our own scans of the registry and the channel itself, not from anything the publisher announced.
What licence is the Bold Systems MCP server under?
Bold Systems declares the MIT licence, which is OSI-approved. That covers the source only, and says nothing about the cost of any service it calls.