Europepmc

What Europepmc MCP server does

The Europepmc MCP server gives MCP-compatible clients access to Europe PubMed Central, the biomedical literature service at the European Bioinformatics Institute. It is intended for finding and inspecting biomedical and life-science publications, abstracts, article metadata, references, and citations.

Search accepts Lucene-style queries and optional pagination. An agent can then retrieve a specific article, request its structured abstract, inspect the references it cites, or find publications that cite it. Article lookups use a source code and identifier; the README specifically identifies MED, PMC, and PPR as supported source values in the exposed tool listing. Europe PubMed Central also provides open-access full-text content, although the documented tool set centers on search and article-related retrieval operations.

How it works

The package calls the Europe PubMed Central REST service at https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/. It does not require an API key. MCP clients can connect to the hosted endpoint at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/europepmc/mcp, or launch the package locally with npx and communicate over stdin/stdout.

The hosted endpoint is part of the Pipeworx gateway. Its tool list contains the Europepmc tools plus shared gateway tools such as ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, and remember/recall. The local package exposes only this pack's tools. The gateway also offers an HTTP interface for direct tool calls, including POST /v1/tools/europepmc_search.

Setup and configuration

For a hosted connection, add the gateway URL to the MCP client's server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "europepmc": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/europepmc/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For a local, account-free setup, configure the client to run:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "europepmc": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-europepmc"]
    }
  }
}

The package can also be started directly with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-europepmc. No environment variables or account credentials are documented as required. The hosted gateway and local package use the same underlying Europe PubMed Central source, but only the hosted route includes Pipeworx's shared meta-tools.

Tools and capabilities

The Europepmc MCP server documents these operations:

• search(query, page?, pageSize?): searches Europe PubMed Central with a Lucene-style query.
• get_article(source, id): retrieves one article record by source and identifier.
• abstract(source, id): returns the title and structured abstract.
• references(source, id, pageSize?): lists references cited by an article.
• citations(source, id, pageSize?): lists articles that cite an article.

The tools are exposed through MCP, and the hosted service can also accept HTTP requests. The gateway's ask_pipeworx tool can route a natural-language question to an appropriate tool, while direct calls provide more explicit control over query and identifier parameters.

Limitations and notes

The local server exposes only the Europepmc pack and does not provide Pipeworx routing. The hosted pack endpoint includes additional shared schemas, so its reported tool count is larger than the five Europepmc operations listed above. The exact hosted scope is provided by the connection's initialize response.

Search results depend on Europe PubMed Central's query syntax and source data. Full-text availability is limited to open-access material. The documentation does not specify a dedicated full-text retrieval operation beyond the article-related capabilities described above. For a client that cannot use MCP, the gateway's HTTP tool API is an alternative.

The project is licensed under MIT.