Command-line bioinformatics tools remain essential for genomic analysis, yet their diversity in syntax and parameterization presents a persistent barrier to productive research. We present oxo-call, a Rust-based command-line assistant that translates natural-language task descriptions into accurate tool invocations through two complementary strategies: documentation-first grounding, which provides the large language model (LLM) with the complete, version-specific help text of each target tool, and curated skill augmentation, which primes the model with domain-expert concepts, common pitfalls, and worked examples. oxo-call (v0.10) ships >150 built-in skills covering 44 analytical categories, from variant calling and genome assembly to single-cell transcriptomics, compiled into a single, statically linked binary. Every generated command is logged with provenance metadata to support reproducible research. oxo-call also provides a DAG-based workflow engine, extensibility through user-defined and community skills via the Model Context Protocol, and support for local LLM inference to address data-privacy requirements. oxo-call is freely available for academic use at https://traitome.github.io/oxo-call/.
@article{arxiv.2604.12387,
title = {oxo-call: Documentation-grounded Skill Augmentation for Accurate Bioinformatics Command-line Generation with Large Language Models},
author = {Yun Peng and Yujun Sun and Jia Ding and Bin Yan and Zhangyu Wang and Chunyang Wang and Chenyang Shu and Jian-Guo Zhou and Shixiang Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.12387},
year = {2026}
}