Query the CZ CELLxGENE Census programmatically for versioned public single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data. Use when you need population-scale cell metadata, gene expression slices, Census summary counts, source…
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name: cellxgene-census
description: Query the CZ CELLxGENE Census programmatically for versioned public single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data. Use when you need population-scale cell metadata, gene expression slices, Census summary counts, source H5AD URIs/downloads, embeddings, spatial Census data, or reference atlas comparisons across organisms, tissues, diseases, assays, and cell types. For analyzing your own local single-cell data use scanpy, anndata, or scvi-tools.
allowed-tools: Read Write Edit Bash
license: MIT
compatibility: Requires Python >=3.10,<3.13. Examples target cellxgene-census 1.17.x and the 2025-11-08 stable LTS Census; spatial workflows need the spatial extra and TileDB-SOMA >=1.15.5. No authentication is required for public Census data.
metadata: {"version": "1.1", "skill-author": "K-Dense Inc."}
---
# CZ CELLxGENE Census
## Overview
The CZ CELLxGENE Census provides programmatic access to a comprehensive, versioned collection of standardized single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data from CZ CELLxGENE Discover. This skill enables efficient querying and analysis of public Census releases without downloading whole datasets first.
The Census includes:
- **217+ million total cells** and **125+ million unique cells** in the 2025-11-08 stable LTS release
- **1,845 datasets** in the 2025-11-08 stable LTS release
- **Human, mouse, marmoset, rhesus macaque, and chimpanzee** data in the current schema
- **Standardized metadata** (cell types, tissues, diseases, donors)
- **Raw gene expression** matrices and source H5AD lookup/download helpers
- **Pre-calculated summary counts, embeddings, and spatial data**
- **Integration with AnnData, Scanpy, TileDB-SOMA, TileDB-SOMA-ML, and other analysis tools**
## When to Use This Skill… load the full skill through Skill Me