Folklore Variant Evidence

Use Folklore Clinical Variant Interpretation MCP to retrieve structured public variant evidence, automated variant-level ACMG/AMP decision support, provenance, and source-linked literature for professional review. Keep the workflow limited to public identifiers and preserve every explicit outcome state. Adapter 1.5.0 also provides ClinGen Gene-Disease Validity assertions; source coverage is bounded, not every known association.

Folklore Clinical Variant Interpretation MCP is published by Helena Bioinformatics. Its hosted endpoint is:

https://api.helena.bio/folklore/v1/mcp

No account or API key is required. The public Apache-2.0 adapter and contract are available at https://github.com/helena-bioinformatics/folklore-mcp.

Minimal connection example

A host without native MCP support can make the same public JSON-RPC call:

curl --silent --show-error --fail-with-body --max-time 60 \
  -X POST https://api.helena.bio/folklore/v1/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'MCP-Protocol-Version: 2026-07-28' \
  -H 'Mcp-Method: tools/call' \
  -H 'Mcp-Name: search_variant_evidence' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"_meta":{"io.modelcontextprotocol/protocolVersion":"2026-07-28","io.modelcontextprotocol/clientCapabilities":{}},"name":"search_variant_evidence","arguments":{"assembly":"GRCh38","query":"rs80357914"}}}'

The routing headers must match the JSON-RPC method and tool name. A successful HTTP response is not sufficient: inspect JSON-RPC error, then result.structuredContent.adapter_error, then this tool's result.structuredContent.result.status. Other tools use different response shapes; use the contract table.

Inspect the returned outcome before continuing. This example can return ambiguous with multiple candidates: stop and request an unambiguous public variant notation instead of selecting a candidate automatically.

Select the right skill

Use this skill when the task is one public variant to structured Folklore evidence, explicit resolution-state handling, variant-linked literature, or ClinGen gene-to-disease/disease-to-gene assertions.

• Use database-lookup for broad direct queries across ClinVar, dbSNP, gnomAD, Ensembl VEP, COSMIC, or multiple databases.
• Use genomic-coordinates first when the assembly, coordinate convention, contig name, or variant representation is uncertain.
• Do not use this skill for VCF annotation, batch processing, somatic variants, structural variants, polygenic scores, or patient-specific interpretation.

Folklore Clinical Variant Interpretation MCP complements those skills with one source-linked public evidence contract. It does not replace direct database review or qualified clinical judgment.

Enforce the input boundary

Before a variant tool call:

1. Extract exactly one public variant identifier or notation.
2. Require GRCh38 and a germline nuclear SNV or simple insertion/deletion shorter than 50 base pairs. An unsupported assembly may be rejected by the input schema before any scientific unsupported status exists.
3. Remove or refuse patient names, case identifiers, phenotypes, family history, segregation evidence, clinical records, uploaded files, and other private or patient-specific context.
4. If the task depends on patient context, stop and explain that Folklore Clinical Variant Interpretation MCP does not accept or evaluate it.
5. Never transform a patient-specific request into a public variant query while implying that the result answers the patient-specific question.

Accepted public variant forms include genomic coordinates, genomic/coding/ protein HGVS, SPDI, rsID, or a canonical_key returned by Folklore Clinical Variant Interpretation MCP.

Verify the live tool catalog

Connect to the hosted endpoint and call tools/list. Verify the available tools instead of relying on model memory. The documented public catalog contains:

• search_variant_evidence
• search_variant_literature
• get_publication_details
• search_literature_corpus
• get_gene_disease_associations
• search_disease_genes

The separate seventh tool support_helena is not scientific evidence; use it only when explicitly requested.

If discovery or a tool call fails, preserve the failure as an availability problem. Do not reinterpret it as lack of scientific evidence.

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