Medical Terminologies MCP

MeSH Allowable Qualifiers

mesh_qualifiers

Read-onlyIdempotent

Retrieve allowed MeSH qualifiers for a descriptor to build precise search queries and identify combinable subheadings such as drug therapy or diagnosis.

Instructions

Get allowed qualifiers (subheadings) for a MeSH descriptor.

Use this tool to:

Find which qualifiers can be combined with a descriptor
Build precise MeSH search queries
Understand aspects that can be specified

Qualifiers refine descriptors (e.g., "Diabetes Mellitus/drug therapy").

Input Schema

Name	Required	Description	Default
`mesh_id`	Yes	MeSH Descriptor ID (e.g., D015242, D003920)

Output Schema

Name	Required	Description
`mesh_id`	Yes	The MeSH descriptor ID as submitted.
`provenance`	Yes	Provenance block: source, URL, data vintage, extraction instant, origin diagnostics, citation, license
`qualifiers`	Yes	Allowable qualifiers (subheadings) for the descriptor, each with its ID, URI and label.
`attribution`	Yes	Canonical source URLs of this response (attribution list)

Schema Changelog

Changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

Changed2 schema fields changedv2.4.0Oct 29, 2026

addedOutput schema / properties / mesh_id / description

Added value: +"The MeSH descriptor ID as submitted."

addedOutput schema / properties / qualifiers / description

Added value: +"Allowable qualifiers (subheadings) for the descriptor, each with its ID, URI and label."

Changed7 schema fields changedv2.3.0Oct 16, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / provenance / description

Previous value: -"Provenance block (contract v1.1): source, URL, data vintage, extraction instant, origin diagnostics, citation, license"New value: +"Provenance block: source, URL, data vintage, extraction instant, origin diagnostics, citation, license"

addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / derivation_note

Added value: +{
+  "description": "What this server computed; present together with derived",
+  "type": "string"
+}

addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / derived

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Present (true) only when this server computed the value (e.g. a ranking or summary statistics) instead of passing on what the source returned",
+  "type": "boolean"
+}

changedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / field_sources / description

Previous value: -"Present only when the response joins parts from different origins or extraction instants (contract v1.2): for each group of fields, its URL, extraction instant and whether it came from cache. Absent in single-origin responses"New value: +"Present only when the response joins parts from different origins or extraction instants: for each group of fields, its URL, extraction instant and whether it came from cache. Absent in single-origin responses"

addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / notices

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Caveats the source publishes about the data, verbatim (license statements are not repeated here; see the info://licenses resource). Absent when there is none",
+  "items": {
+    "type": "string"
+  },
+  "minItems": 1,
+  "type": "array"
+}

changedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / retrieval / description

Previous value: -"Origin diagnostics of THIS source in this call (contract v1.1): requests made to the upstream, attempts summed across retries, anomalies worked around (kind + count); unstable=true when any anomaly happened. null when nothing was measured (bundled dataset, or response served entirely from cache)"New value: +"Origin diagnostics of THIS source in this call: requests made to the upstream, attempts summed across retries, anomalies worked around (kind + count); unstable=true when any anomaly happened. null when nothing was measured (bundled dataset, or response served entirely from cache)"

addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / revision

Added value: +{
+  "additionalProperties": false,
+  "description": "Whether the data can still change at the source: current = the version in force, the source may revise it; provisional = preliminary; final = will not change. Absent when unknown",
+  "properties": {
+    "note": {
+      "description": "O específico da fonte: o que revisa, quando, por quê",
+      "type": [
+        "string",
+        "null"
+      ]
+    },
+    "status": {
+      "description": "current = versão vigente, a fonte pode revisá-la; provisional = preliminar, incompleta ou sujeita a mudança (não compare como se fosse fechada); final = não muda mais, declarado pela fonte",
+      "enum": [
+        "current",
+        "provisional",
+        "final"
+      ],
+      "type": "string"
+    }
+  },
+  "required": [
+    "status",
+    "note"
+  ],
+  "type": "object"
+}

Changed1 schema field changedv2.1.1Oct 7, 2026

addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / field_sources

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Present only when the response joins parts from different origins or extraction instants (contract v1.2): for each group of fields, its URL, extraction instant and whether it came from cache. Absent in single-origin responses",
+  "items": {
+    "additionalProperties": false,
+    "description": "Proveniência de um grupo de campos da resposta: de onde veio e quando foi extraído",
+    "properties": {
+      "data_vintage": {
+        "description": "Vintage/competência da sub-fonte",
+        "type": [
+          "string",
+          "null"
+        ]
+      },
+      "dataset_id": {
+        "description": "Identificador do conjunto da sub-fonte",
+        "type": [
+          "string",
+          "null"
+        ]
+      },
+      "fields": {
+        "description": "Campos do payload atribuídos a esta sub-fonte",
+        "items": {
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        "minItems": 1,
+        "type": "array"
+      },
+      "retrieved_at": {
+        "description": "ISO-8601 da extração desta sub-fonte na origem",
+        "type": [
+          "string",
+          "null"
+        ]
+      },
+      "served_from_cache": {
+        "description": "true se esta sub-fonte veio do cache do servidor (retrieved_at é o da extração original); false se foi buscada nesta chamada; null se o servidor não distingue",
+        "type": [
+          "boolean",
+          "null"
+        ]
+      },
+      "source_url": {
+        "description": "URL canônica da sub-fonte que originou estes campos",
+        "type": "string"
+      }
+    },
+    "required": [
+      "fields",
+      "source_url",
+      "dataset_id",
+      "data_vintage",
+      "retrieved_at"
+    ],
+    "type": "object"
+  },
+  "minItems": 1,
+  "type": "array"
+}

Changed3 schema fields changedv1.15.0Sep 27, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / provenance / description

Previous value: -"Provenance block (contract v1.0): source, URL, data vintage, extraction instant, citation, license"New value: +"Provenance block (contract v1.1): source, URL, data vintage, extraction instant, origin diagnostics, citation, license"

addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / retrieval

Added value: +{
+  "anyOf": [
+    {
+      "additionalProperties": false,
+      "properties": {
+        "anomalies": {
+          "description": "Anomalias superadas até o sucesso, somadas por classe, em ordem fixa; [] se nenhuma",
+          "items": {
+            "additionalProperties": false,
+            "properties": {
+              "count": {
+                "description": "Ocorrências desta classe na chamada",
+                "maximum": 9007199254740991,
+                "minimum": 1,
+                "type": "integer"
+              },
+              "kind": {
+                "description": "Classe da anomalia (vocabulário fechado do contrato)",
+                "enum": [
+                  "timeout",
+                  "network",
+                  "http_4xx",
+                  "http_5xx",
+                  "rate_limited",
+                  "malformed_body"
+                ],
+                "type": "string"
+              }
+            },
+            "required": [
+              "kind",
+              "count"
+            ],
+            "type": "object"
+          },
+          "type": "array"
+        },
+        "attempts": {
+          "description": "Tentativas somadas, incluindo as repetidas (>= requests)",
+          "maximum": 9007199254740991,
+          "minimum": 1,
+          "type": "integer"
+        },
+        "requests": {
+          "description": "Idas distintas à origem que compõem esta resposta (fatias, páginas)",
+          "maximum": 9007199254740991,
+          "minimum": 1,
+          "type": "integer"
+        },
+        "unstable": {
+          "description": "true se houve repetição (attempts > requests) ou alguma anomalia",
+          "type": "boolean"
+        }
+      },
+      "required": [
+        "requests",
+        "attempts",
+        "anomalies",
+        "unstable"
+      ],
+      "type": "object"
+    },
+    {
+      "type": "null"
+    }
+  ],
+  "description": "Origin diagnostics of THIS source in this call (contract v1.1): requests made to the upstream, attempts summed across retries, anomalies worked around (kind + count); unstable=true when any anomaly happened. null when nothing was measured (bundled dataset, or response served entirely from cache)"
+}

changedOutput schema / properties / provenance / required

Previous value: -[
-  "source",
-  "source_url",
-  "data_vintage",
-  "retrieved_at",
-  "citation",
-  "license"
-]New value: +[
+  "source",
+  "source_url",
+  "data_vintage",
+  "retrieved_at",
+  "retrieval",
+  "citation",
+  "license"
+]

Changed1 schema field changedv1.11.0Sep 15, 2026
- addedInput schema / additionalProperties
```
Added value: +false
```
Changed4 schema fields changedv1.9.1Sep 1, 2026
- removedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / data_vintage / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / data_vintage / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / license / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / provenance / properties / license / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```

Changed3 schema fields changedv1.8.0Aug 10, 2026

addedOutput schema / properties / attribution

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Canonical source URLs of this response (attribution list)",
+  "items": {
+    "type": "string"
+  },
+  "type": "array"
+}

addedOutput schema / properties / provenance

Added value: +{
+  "additionalProperties": false,
+  "description": "Provenance block (contract v1.0): source, URL, data vintage, extraction instant, citation, license",
+  "properties": {
+    "citation": {
+      "description": "Ready-to-use citation/attribution string",
+      "type": "string"
+    },
+    "data_vintage": {
+      "anyOf": [
+        {
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        {
+          "type": "null"
+        }
+      ],
+      "description": "Version/release of the data as exposed by the source; null when not exposed"
+    },
+    "license": {
+      "anyOf": [
+        {
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        {
+          "type": "null"
+        }
+      ],
+      "description": "License / legal regime of the data"
+    },
+    "retrieved_at": {
+      "description": "Real instant of the upstream extraction (ISO-8601, UTC). Responses served from cache keep the ORIGINAL fetch instant.",
+      "type": "string"
+    },
+    "source": {
+      "description": "Official upstream source of this data",
+      "type": "string"
+    },
+    "source_url": {
+      "description": "Canonical URL of the source (API base or dataset release)",
+      "type": "string"
+    }
+  },
+  "required": [
+    "source",
+    "source_url",
+    "data_vintage",
+    "retrieved_at",
+    "citation",
+    "license"
+  ],
+  "type": "object"
+}

changedOutput schema / required

Previous value: -[
-  "mesh_id",
-  "qualifiers"
-]New value: +[
+  "mesh_id",
+  "qualifiers",
+  "provenance",
+  "attribution"
+]

Changed1 schema field changedv1.5.7Jun 21, 2026
- removedInput schema / additionalProperties
```
Removed value: -false
```
First observedv1.2.1May 11, 2026

TDQS

A3.8/5.0

Behavior3/5

Does the description disclose side effects, auth requirements, rate limits, or destructive behavior?

Annotations already declare readOnly, idempotent, openWorld, and non-destructive behavior, so the bar is lower. The description adds domain meaning (qualifiers are subheadings that refine descriptors) and an example, but it does not disclose any further behavioral traits such as error conditions or constraints beyond what the schema and annotations already convey.

Agents need to know what a tool does to the world before calling it. Descriptions should go beyond structured annotations to explain consequences.

Conciseness5/5

Is the description appropriately sized, front-loaded, and free of redundancy?

The description is short and front-loaded: the core action appears in the first sentence, followed by a compact usage bullet list and a one-line clarifying example. Every sentence contributes without waste.

Shorter descriptions cost fewer tokens and are easier for agents to parse. Every sentence should earn its place.

Completeness4/5

Given the tool's complexity, does the description cover enough for an agent to succeed on first attempt?

Given the simple one-parameter lookup, rich schema, and presence of an output schema, the description covers what the tool does and when to use it. The only notable omission is sibling differentiation, which would help an agent choose between this and mesh_descriptor or mesh_search.

Complex tools with many parameters or behaviors need more documentation. Simple tools need less. This dimension scales expectations accordingly.

Parameters3/5

Does the description clarify parameter syntax, constraints, interactions, or defaults beyond what the schema provides?

Schema description coverage is 100% — the mesh_id parameter has a pattern and examples in the schema. The description adds no parameter-specific information beyond what the schema provides, so baseline 3 is appropriate.

Input schemas describe structure but not intent. Descriptions should explain non-obvious parameter relationships and valid value ranges.

Purpose4/5

Does the description clearly state what the tool does and how it differs from similar tools?

States a specific verb and resource: 'Get allowed qualifiers (subheadings) for a MeSH descriptor.' The purpose is unmistakable, but the description never names or distinguishes it from related siblings like mesh_descriptor or mesh_tree.

Agents choose between tools based on descriptions. A clear purpose with a specific verb and resource helps agents select the right tool.

Usage Guidelines4/5

Does the description explain when to use this tool, when not to, or what alternatives exist?

A 'Use this tool to' bullet list gives clear usage contexts (finding combinable qualifiers, building queries, understanding specified aspects). It lacks explicit when-not-to-use guidance or alternative-tool routing, but the positive guidance is strong.

Agents often have multiple tools that could apply. Explicit usage guidance like "use X instead of Y when Z" prevents misuse.