asta-assistant

Asta

Asta is a set of skills for scientific research, usable by local coding agents. It is distributed as a set of agent plugins.

asta-tools

A core set of skills for individual research tasks. Core capabilities include:

• Literature Review
  • Intelligent search over full text of open-access publications, multi-paper summarization
  • Example request: Our experiments have shown that task-driven learning progresses from high-level to low-level neuronal layers. Are there any studies that show learning in the opposite direction?
• Local Library Management
  • Find and download PDFs from authenticated sources, extract contents, index for local retrieval
  • Example request: Fetch the content of the papers in this BibTeX file and index them
• Data Analysis -
  • Run a series of data analysis experiments on a local dataset, using automatically-generated hypotheses
  • Example request: This dataset contains neuropixel recordings from mice performing a visual/auditory context-switching task. The experimental setup is ... Analyze how neurons respond to stimuli, activity, behavioral state, and movement. Keep these questions in mind: ...
• Theory/Hypothesis Generation -
  • Synthesize theoretical explanations for phenomena described in the literature
  • Example request: What drives lung adenocarcinomas without known RTK/RAS/RAF pathway driver alterations

asta-flows

A library of multi-step workflows. The agent will select an appropriate workflow and execute a series of actions using the asta-tools skills and other tools in the environment

asta-assistant

A long-range autonomous research assistant. Point the agent to a mission document containing background and directions to explore. The agent will coordinate with the user to pursue open questions in a long-range research plan.

asta-dev

Skills for developers wishing to contribute to the asta-tools or asta-flows plugins

Installation

# Whole plugin (skills + hooks) into your agent's native plugin system.
npx plugins add allenai/asta-plugins

# Skills only (loose skill files).
npx skills add allenai/asta-plugins -g

# Claude Code marketplace (alternative to npx plugins)
> /plugin marketplace add allenai/asta-plugins
> /plugin install asta-tools
> /plugin install asta-flows      # optional, for multi-step workflows
> /plugin install asta-assistant  # optional, for autonomous research
> /plugin install asta-dev        # optional, for contributors

Asta CLI

The skills install an asta CLI tool, which has sub-commands for the various research functions. The CLI can be used directly from the command line or invoked by agents via Bash commands. Some commands work on the local filesystem using your own LLM provider keys. Other commands call external APIs hosted by Ai2 For these, the CLI will prompt you to authenticate on first use.

Research project documentation

The asta-tools:workspace skill lets users see and save the agent's work on a research project. Reports are generated with Quarto and publised to GitHub Pages.

The ghcr.io/allenai/asta Docker image is published with the asta CLI, skills, and Quarto pre-installed

docker pull ghcr.io/allenai/asta:v0.10.0

asta auth login
export ASTA_TOKEN=$(asta auth print-token --raw --refresh)

docker run --rm -it -e ASTA_TOKEN -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
  ghcr.io/allenai/asta:latest bash

# Install Claude Code and register skills:
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
claude plugin marketplace add /opt/asta-plugins --scope user
claude plugin install asta-tools

# Or install any other agent and use npx:
npx skills add /opt/asta-plugins -g --yes

Development

See DEVELOPER.md for contributor guidelines, architecture details, and development setup.

License

Apache 2.0