Pubmed MCP Server

io.github.cyanheads/pubmed-mcp-server

answering

Pubmed MCP Server is answering right now. Last checked 5 min ago. 2 995 installs a week from npm. It exposes 11 tools. Last commit 30 Jul 2026.

Search PubMed/Europe PMC, fetch articles and full text (PMC/EPMC/Unpaywall), citations, MeSH terms.

Installs per day peak 1 437 · avg 372 · -23% w/w

a month agotoday

Uptime history 39 hours of history · worst hour 75%

39 hours agonow

100.0%

Uptime 24h

91 of 91 checks

Tools

read from the server

348 ms

Response time

average over 24h

2 995

Installs / week

npm and PyPI

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 5 min ago.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex Cursor VS Code

run in your terminal

claude mcp add pubmed-mcp-server --transport http https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubmed-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.pubmed-mcp-server]
url = "https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp"

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubmed-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubmed-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Available tools 11

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

pubmed

pubmed_convert_ids

Convert between article identifiers (DOI, PMID, PMCID). Accepts up to 50 IDs of a single type per request. Only resolves articles indexed in PubMed Central — for articles not in PMC, use pubmed_search_articles instead.

pubmed_europepmc_fetch

Fetch complete Europe PMC records — including the full, untruncated abstract — for records addressed by `source` plus `epmcId`. Pairs with `pubmed_europepmc_search`, which returns bounded `abstractSnippet` values and flags cut ones with `abstractTruncated: true`; pass those hits' `source` and `epmcId` here to read the whole abstract. This is the retrieval path for preprint (`PPR`), patent (`PAT`), and Agricola (`AGR`) records, which frequently carry no PMID and no DOI, so `pubmed_fetch_articles` and `pubmed_fetch_fulltext` cannot address them. Up to 25 records per call.

pubmed_europepmc_search

Search Europe PMC, a broad open-access biomedical corpus. Surfaces preprints (`source: PPR`), patents (`source: PAT`), Agricola (`source: AGR`), plus everything in PubMed (`MED`) and PMC. Use when additional coverage is needed — preprints and EPMC-only OA records are the typical recovery. Paginate via `cursorMark`. Defaults to `MED`, `PMC`, and `PPR`; pass `sources` to include `PAT` / `AGR`. Abstracts arrive as a bounded `abstractSnippet` with `abstractTruncated` marking the cut ones — pass a hit’s `source` and `epmcId` to `pubmed_europepmc_fetch` for the complete abstract.

pubmed_fetch_articles

Fetch full article metadata by PubMed IDs. Returns detailed article information including abstract, authors, journal, MeSH terms.

pubmed_fetch_fulltext

Fetch full-text articles from PubMed Central with structured sections and references. When PMC misses, transparently falls back to Europe PMC `fullTextXML` (structured JATS for records with a PMC counterpart), then to Unpaywall — publisher-hosted or institutional open-access copies as HTML-as-Markdown or PDF-as-text. Provide exactly one of `pmcids` (PMC IDs directly), `pmids` (PubMed IDs, auto-resolved), or `dois` (DOIs, auto-resolved to PMC via the ID Converter; preprints and EPMC-only OA fall through to the Europe PMC and Unpaywall layers).

pubmed_find_related

Find articles related to a source article — similar content (similar), articles citing this one (cited_by), or articles this one cites (references). Uses NCBI ELink as the primary source; falls back to Europe PMC then OpenAlex when NCBI is unavailable.

pubmed_format_citations

Get formatted citations for PubMed articles in one or more formats (apa, mla, bibtex, ris, vancouver). Pass a single format as a string or multiple as an array.

pubmed_lookup_citation

Look up PubMed IDs from partial bibliographic citations. Useful when you have a reference (journal, year, volume, page, author) and need the PMID — deterministic citation matching, more reliable than free-text search for structured references. Each citation must include at least journal or year (ECitMatch primary-keys on journal+volume+page; author-only or volume-only inputs guarantee no match); more fields = better match accuracy.

pubmed_lookup_mesh

Search and explore the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) controlled vocabulary. Returns descriptor records with tree numbers, scope notes, and entry terms, plus pagination via offset for paging past the maxResults cap.

pubmed_search_articles

Search PubMed with full query syntax, filters, and date ranges. Returns PMIDs and optional brief summaries. Supports field-specific filters (author, journal, MeSH terms), common filters (language, species, free full text), and pagination via offset for paging through large result sets.

pubmed_spell_check

Spell-check a query and get NCBI's suggested correction. Useful for refining search queries.

Endpoints

URL	Transport	State	Latency	Checked
https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp	streamable-http	answering	377 ms	5 min ago

Pubmed MCP Server — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can Pubmed MCP Server do?

It exposes 11 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: pubmed_convert_ids, pubmed_europepmc_fetch, pubmed_europepmc_search, pubmed_fetch_articles, pubmed_fetch_fulltext, pubmed_find_related and 5 more. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →

Is Pubmed MCP Server working right now?

We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 91 of 91 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 348 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.

How do I connect Pubmed MCP Server?

Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.

Does Pubmed MCP Server need an API key?

No. Pubmed MCP Server completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 11 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.

How fast is Pubmed MCP Server?

It answers our handshake in 348 ms on average, which is faster than 40% of all working MCP servers we measure. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.

How many people use Pubmed MCP Server?

The npm package @cyanheads/pubmed-mcp-server was installed 2 995 times in the last week. Week over week that is -23%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.

Is Pubmed MCP Server open source?

Yes — it is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, written in TypeScript and 129 stars on GitHub. The source link is on this page, so you can read exactly what it does with your data before you connect it.