Agentic platforms for research
Agentic platforms are complete research applications that you open in your browser from a running JupyterHUB session. The application itself runs on the cluster inside your session; your browser only displays it. This is a different way of working from the AI Interfaces for Chimera, where you run an AI client on your own computer and connect it to Chimera over SSH.
Three platforms are currently available:
| Platform | Purpose | Chimera MCP tools | Isolation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biomni Web | Biomedical research agent for tasks such as sequencing analysis, workflow design, and protocol search | No | Runs inside an Apptainer container |
| Claude Science | Claude's agentic research application, integrated with Chimera tooling | Yes | None; runs with your account permissions |
| Claude Science SANDBOX | The same application in its supported sandbox mode | No | Claude Science sandbox |
Use Biomni Web for biomedical and life-science research tasks. It is a domain agent with its own tools, datasets, and skills, and it runs its work inside a container.
Use Claude Science when you want a general research agent that can also drive Chimera itself, through the same Chimera Slurm and FileCompress MCP tools described on the AI Interfaces for Chimera page. This launcher is not sandboxed.
Use Claude Science SANDBOX when you want the application's supported sandbox mode and do not need the Chimera tools.
These platforms are not installed for you
None of these platforms is installed globally on Chimera. Before a platform appears in your JupyterLab launcher, you must install its launcher package yourself, once per account, and then restart your JupyterHub server.
The installation is small and takes a minute. It puts a launcher entry into your own Python user site; it does not install the application itself, which is already deployed in a shared location on /work.
If you install a launcher and the tile does not appear, the usual reason is that the JupyterHub server was not restarted. Restarting JupyterLab in your browser is not enough.
Prerequisites
All three platforms need:
- A Chimera account with access to JupyterHUB.
- A writable
/work/<CASlogin>directory. All of these platforms keep their state there, because the application data is far too large for the smaller/homefilesystem. If/work/<CASlogin>does not exist or is not writable, ask the Chimera administrators to create it for your account. - Your own model credentials. Chimera does not provide a shared subscription or a shared API key for any of these platforms.
How you supply credentials differs by platform. Claude Science requires you to sign in with your own Claude account and subscription. Biomni Web requires your own Anthropic or OpenAI API key, which you enter in the application.
Neither platform can currently use the university's LiteLLM gateway. For Biomni Web, gateway support is expected in a future update.
WARNING: An agentic platform acts on your behalf. Depending on the platform and launcher, it can read and write your files, submit and cancel jobs, and consume your allocation. Anything the agent reads may be sent to the model provider, including file paths, log contents, and parts of your data. Do not ask an agent to handle secrets, passwords, tokens, private keys, or data you are not allowed to share. Any action the agent takes remains your personal responsibility.
Per-platform documentation
Each platform has its own page with full installation, usage, data-location, and troubleshooting details:
Ending a session
These applications run inside your JupyterHub session and keep running as long as that session is alive. Closing the browser tab does not stop them, and Log Out only ends your web login while the session continues to hold cluster resources.
To actually stop the application and release the resources, end your session from the JupyterHub control panel, as described in JupyterHUB.