literature-search-mcp
Server Configuration
Describes the environment variables required to run the server.
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| NCBI_TOOL | No | Tool name sent to PubMed/NCBI (default: literature-search-mcp). | |
| NCBI_EMAIL | No | Optional email sent to NCBI. | |
| NCBI_API_KEY | No | Optional API key for NCBI/PubMed. | |
| CROSSREF_MAILTO | No | Optional email for Crossref API etiquette. | |
| OPENALEX_MAILTO | No | Optional email for OpenAlex API etiquette. | |
| OPENALEX_API_KEY | No | Optional API key for OpenAlex. | |
| SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY | No | Optional API key for Semantic Scholar. |
Instructions
Guidance the server publishes about itself, which clients place ahead of the tool catalog so the model reads it before choosing anything.
This server publishes no instructions, or was last inspected before Glama recorded them.
Capabilities
Features and capabilities supported by this server
Protocol revision2025-11-25
| Capability | Details |
|---|---|
| tools | {
"listChanged": true
} |
Tools
Functions exposed to the LLM to take actions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| literature_searchA | Search PubMed, Europe PMC, bioRxiv/medRxiv, Crossref, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, and arXiv. Sources fan out in parallel by default; results are normalized, deduplicated, and fused deterministically. Returns provider-supplied metadata abstracts or summaries capped at 3,000 characters by default, never full text or citation graphs. |
| literature_sourcesA | List the seven supported literature sources, optional credential environment variables, and provider limitations. |
| literature_get_fulltextA | Fetch open-access full text from Europe PMC (PMC Open Access subset) for a paper identified by at least one of pmcid, pmid, or doi. Returns title, abstract, structured sections, a joined plain-text full_text, and metadata (identifiers, source, url, license, word/character counts, truncated flag). Papers without open-access full text return a structured status of "not_found". |
Prompts
Interactive templates invoked by user choice
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
No prompts | |
Resources
Contextual data attached and managed by the client
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
No resources | |
TDQS
Scored across 3 tools
Each tool serves a clearly distinct purpose: searching across sources, listing sources, and fetching full text. No functional overlap exists between them.
Tools generally follow a verb_noun pattern with a shared 'literature_' prefix, but 'literature_sources' is a noun phrase rather than a verb action, creating a minor deviation from the otherwise consistent style.
Three tools is a well-scoped set for a literature search server, covering the essential operations without redundancy or bloat.
The set covers searching, source enumeration, and open-access full-text retrieval, but lacks a direct metadata lookup by identifier (e.g., PMID/DOI) when full text is unavailable, which is a minor gap.