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PubMed

by Andy Brandt

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v0.1.16

Repository Docs

Web & Search

researchmedicalpubmedliterature

Summary

Search PubMed's biomedical literature and read abstracts and open-access full text from an AI client.

Features

Search PubMed's biomedical literature index
Retrieve abstracts and structured metadata
Access open-access full text where available

Installation

Set up this MCP server in your favorite AI agent — copy a ready-made configuration below.

Any MCP-compatible agent

Most agents (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, and more) read a standard mcpServers configuration.

Open your agent's MCP configuration file.
Merge the snippet below into it, filling in the environment variables with your own values.
Restart the agent — the "PubMed" tools will be available.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubmed": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-simple-pubmed"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PUBMED_EMAIL": "you@example.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Add the server with a single CLI command.

claude mcp add pubmed -e PUBMED_EMAIL=you@example.com -- uvx mcp-simple-pubmed

Claude Desktop

Add the server to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubmed": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-simple-pubmed"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PUBMED_EMAIL": "you@example.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

{
  "command": "uvx",
  "args": [
    "mcp-simple-pubmed"
  ],
  "env": {
    "PUBMED_EMAIL": "you@example.com"
  }
}

Windsurf

{
  "command": "uvx",
  "args": [
    "mcp-simple-pubmed"
  ],
  "env": {
    "PUBMED_EMAIL": "you@example.com"
  }
}

VS Code

{
  "command": "uvx",
  "args": [
    "mcp-simple-pubmed"
  ],
  "env": {
    "PUBMED_EMAIL": "you@example.com"
  }
}

Description

This MCP server connects an assistant to PubMed through the NCBI Entrez API, giving it access to the primary index of biomedical and life sciences literature.

What it provides

Search across PubMed's index using its query syntax, including MeSH terms, field tags, and date filters
Abstracts and metadata — authors, journal, publication date, DOI, and identifiers
Full text for open-access articles available through PubMed Central

Where it is useful

Grounding health-related questions in the actual literature rather than in a model's recollection of it, which is a meaningful difference when the topic is clinical. It is equally useful for researchers doing background reading, checking whether a finding has been replicated, or assembling references.

An important caveat

Search results are not clinical guidance, and an assistant summarising abstracts is not a clinician. This is a literature access tool: it makes the evidence findable, and evaluating that evidence remains a human task with the appropriate expertise.

Setup

NCBI asks that requests identify a contact email, supplied through an environment variable. An API key raises the rate limit but is not required. Installed with uvx mcp-simple-pubmed.