About Disco
Disco is a data discovery service for analysts and research teams seeking patterns in tabular datasets without starting from a specific hypothesis. It validates patterns on held-out data, corrects for multiple testing, and checks academic literature for context and novelty.
Key features
- 01Finds conditional patterns and feature interactions
- 02Validates patterns on held-out data
- 03Applies FDR correction to p-values
- 04Checks patterns against academic literature
- 05Returns effects, citations, and novelty labels
Use cases
- 01Explore a dataset without a starting hypothesis
- 02Identify interactions affecting an outcome
- 03Assess whether findings may be novel
- 04Review validated patterns with citations
MCP support
Disco provides an MCP server at https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcp. Its tools support plan listing and estimates, data upload and analysis, status and results retrieval, and account operations.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http discovery-engine https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcp{"mcpServers":{"discovery-engine":{"type":"http","url":"https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcp"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"discovery-engine":{"type":"http","url":"https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcp"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"discovery-engine":{"type":"http","url":"https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcp"}}}{"mcpServers":{"discovery-engine":{"serverUrl":"https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcp"}}}Run commands in a terminal; paste JSON into the client’s MCP config and restart. Servers that need sign-in will prompt on first connect.
https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcpAuth requiredTools
14This tool takes no parameters.
Details
From the project READMEDisco
Find novel, statistically validated patterns in tabular data — feature interactions, subgroup effects, and conditional relationships that humans and agents miss.
Made by Leap Laboratories.
What it actually does
Most data analysis starts with a question. Disco starts with the data.
Without biases or assumptions, it finds combinations of feature conditions that significantly shift your target column — things like "patients aged 45–65 with low HDL and high CRP have 3× the readmission rate" — without you needing to hypothesise that interaction first.
Each pattern is:
- Validated on a hold-out set — increases the chance of generalisation
- FDR-corrected — p-values included, adjusted for multiple testing
- Checked against academic literature — to help you understand what you've found, and identify if it is novel.
The output is structured: conditions, effect sizes, p-values, citations, and a novelty classification for every pattern found.
Use it when: "which variables are most important with respect to X", "are there patterns we're missing?", "I don't know where to start with this data", "I need to understand how A and B affect C".
Not for: summary statistics, visualisation, filtering, SQL queries — use pandas for those
Quickstart
pip install discovery-engine-api
Get an API key:
# Step 1: request verification code (no password, no card)
curl -X POST https://disco.leap-labs.com/api/signup \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"email": "[email protected]"}'
# Step 2: submit code from email → get key
curl -X POST https://disco.leap-labs.com/api/signup/verify \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"email": "[email protected]", "code": "123456"}'
# → {"key": "disco_...", "credits": 10, "tier": "free_tier"}
Or create a key at disco.leap-labs.com/developers.
Run your first analysis:
from discovery import Engine
engine = Engine(api_key="disco_...")
result = await engine.discover(
file="data.csv",
target_column="outcome",
)
for pattern in result.patterns:
if pattern.p_value < 0.05 and pattern.novelty_type == "novel":
print(f"{pattern.description} (p={pattern.p_value:.4f})")
print(f"Explore: {result.report_url}")
Runs take a few minutes. discover() polls automatically and logs progress — queue position, estimated wait, current pipeline step, and ETA. For background runs, see Running asynchronously.
→ Full Python SDK reference · Example notebook
What you get back
Each Pattern in result.patterns looks like this (real output from a crop yield dataset):
Pattern(
description="When humidity is between 72–89% AND wind speed is below 12 km/h, "
"crop yield increases by 34% above the dataset average",
conditions=[
{"type": "continuous", "feature": "humidity_pct",
"min_value": 72.0, "max_value": 89.0},
{"type": "continuous", "feature": "wind_speed_kmh",
"min_value": 0.0, "max_value": 12.0},
],
p_value=0.003, # FDR-corrected
novelty_type="novel",
novelty_explanation="Published studies examine humidity and wind speed as independent "
"predictors, but this interaction effect — where low wind amplifies "
"the benefit of high humidity within a specific range — has not been "
"reported in the literature.",
citations=[
{"title": "Effects of relative humidity on cereal crop productivity",
"authors": ["Zhang, L.", "Wang, H."], "year": "2021",
"journal": "Journal of Agricultural Science"},
],
target_change_direction="max",
abs_target_change=0.34, # 34% increase
support_count=847, # rows matching this pattern
support_percentage=16.9,
)
Key things to notice:
- Patterns are combinations of conditions — humidity AND wind speed together, not just "more humidity is better"
- Specific thresholds — 72–89%, not a vague correlation
- Novel vs confirmatory — every pattern is classified; confirmatory ones validate known science, novel ones are what you came for
- Citations — shows what IS known, so you can see what's genuinely new
report_urllinks to an interactive web report with all patterns visualised
The result.summary gives an LLM-generated narrative overview:
result.summary.overview
# "Disco identified 14 statistically significant patterns. 5 are novel.
# The strongest driver is a previously unreported interaction between humidity
# and wind speed at specific thresholds."
result.summary.key_insights
# ["Humidity × low wind speed at 72–89% humidity produces a 34% yield increase — novel.",
# "Soil nitrogen above 45 mg/kg shows diminishing returns when phosphorus is below 12 mg/kg.",
# ...]
How it works
Disco is a pipeline, not prompt engineering over data. It:
- Trains machine learning models on a subset of your data
- Uses interpretability techniques to extract learned patterns
- Validates every pattern on the held-out data with FDR correction (Benjamini-Hochberg)
- Checks surviving patterns against academic literature via semantic search
You cannot replicate this by writing pandas code or asking an LLM to look at a CSV. It finds structure that hypothesis-driven analysis misses because it doesn't start with hypotheses.
Preparing your data
Before running, exclude columns that would produce meaningless findings. Disco finds statistically real patterns — but if the input includes columns that are definitionally related to the target, the patterns will be tautological.
Exclude:
- Identifiers — row IDs, UUIDs, patient IDs, sample codes
- Data leakage — the target renamed or reformatted (e.g.,
diagnosis_textwhen the target isdiagnosis_code) - Tautological columns — alternative encodings of the same construct as the target. If target is
serious, thenserious_outcome,not_serious,deathare all part of the same classification. If target isprofit, thenrevenueandcosttogether compose it. If target is a survey index, the sub-items are tautological.
Full guidance with examples: SKILL.md
Parameters
await engine.discover(
file="data.csv", # path, Path, or pd.DataFrame
target_column="outcome", # column to predict/explain
analysis_depth=2, # 2=default, higher=deeper analysis, lower = faster and cheaper
visibility="public", # "public" (always free, data and report is published) or "private" (costs credits)
column_descriptions={ # improves pattern explanations and literature context
"bmi": "Body mass index",
"hdl": "HDL cholesterol in mg/dL",
},
excluded_columns=["id", "timestamp"], # see "Preparing your data" above
use_llms=False, # Defaults to False. If True, runs are slower and more expensive, but you get smarter pre-processing, summary page, literature context and novelty assessment. Public runs always use LLMs.
title="My dataset",
description="...", # improves pattern explanations and literature context
)
Public runs are free but results are published. Set
visibility="private"for private data — this costs credits.
Running asynchronously
Runs take a few minutes. For agent workflows or scripts that do other work in parallel:
# Submit without waiting
run = await engine.run_async(file="data.csv", target_column="outcome", wait=False)
print(f"Submitted {run.run_id}, continuing...")
# ... do other things ...
result = await engine.wait_for_completion(run.run_id, timeout=1800)
For synchronous scripts and Jupyter notebooks:
result = engine.run(file="data.csv", target_column="outcome", wait=True)
# or: pip install discovery-engine-api[jupyter] for notebook compatibility
MCP server
Disco is available as an MCP server — no local install required.
{
"mcpServers": {
"discovery-engine": {
"url": "https://disco.leap-labs.com/mcp",
"env": { "DISCOVERY_API_KEY": "disco_..." }
}
}
}
Tools: discovery_list_plans, discovery_estimate, discovery_upload, discovery_analyze, discovery_status, discovery_get_results, discovery_account, discovery_signup, discovery_signup_verify, discovery_login, discovery_login_verify, discovery_add_payment_method, discovery_subscribe, discovery_purchase_credits.
Pricing
| Cost | |
|---|---|
| Public runs | Free — results and data are published |
| Private runs | Credits vary by file size and configuration — use engine.estimate() |
| Free tier | 10 credits/month, no card required |
| Researcher | $49/month — 500 credits |
| Team | $199/month — 2000 credits |
| Credits | $0.10 per credit |
Estimate before running:
estimate = await engine.estimate(file_size_mb=10.5, num_columns=25, analysis_depth=2, visibility="private")
# estimate["cost"]["credits"] → 55
# estimate["account"]["sufficient"] → True/False
Account management is fully programmatic — attach payment methods, subscribe to plans, and purchase credits via the SDK or REST API. See Python SDK reference or SKILL.md.
Expected data format
Disco expects a flat table — columns for features, rows for samples.
| patient_id | age | bmi | smoker | outcome |
|------------|-----|------|--------|---------|
| 001 | 52 | 28.3 | yes | 1 |
| 002 | 34 | 22.1 | no | 0 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
- One row per observation — a patient, a sample, a transaction, a measurement, etc.
- One column per feature — numeric, categorical, datetime, or free text are all fine
- One target column — the outcome you want to understand. Must have at least 2 distinct values.
- Missing values are OK — Disco handles them automatically. Don't drop rows or impute beforehand.
- No pivoting needed — if your data is already in a flat table, it's ready to go
Supported formats: CSV, TSV, Excel (.xlsx), JSON, Parquet, ARFF, Feather. Max 5 GB.
Not supported: images, raw text documents, nested/hierarchical JSON, multi-sheet Excel (use the first sheet or export to CSV)
Compared to other tools
| Goal | Tool |
|---|---|
| Summary statistics, data quality | ydata-profiling, sweetviz |
| Predictive model | AutoML (auto-sklearn, TPOT, H2O) |
| Quick correlations | pandas, seaborn |
| Answer a specific question about data | ChatGPT, Claude |
| Find what you don't know to look for | Disco |
Disco isn't a replacement for EDA or AutoML — it finds the patterns those tools miss. We tested 18 data analysis tools on a dataset with known ground-truth patterns. Most confidently reported wrong results. Disco was the only one that found every pattern.
Links
- Dashboard
- API keys
- Python SDK on PyPI
- Python SDK reference
- OpenAPI spec
- Agent / MCP docs
- LLM-friendly reference
- OpenAPI spec
- OpenAPI spec (in-repo)
- Public reports gallery
Comments
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