# `pubmed__pubmed_fetch_articles`
**Pubmed Fetch Articles**
Fetch full article metadata by PubMed IDs. Returns detailed article information including abstract, authors, journal, MeSH terms. Set \`maxResponseCharacters\` to bound the whole response: articles past the ceiling are deferred whole and listed in \`deferred.ids\` for a follow-up call.
- Server: [PubMed](https://gateway.mcpharbor.dev/docs/servers/pubmed) (`dev.mcpharbor.gateway/pubmed`)
- Price per call: $0.0001 (100 micro-USD); only tools/call is charged
- Endpoint: `https://gateway.mcpharbor.dev/mcp` or `https://gateway.mcpharbor.dev/mcp/pubmed`
- Upstream tool: exposed by the provider; called through this gateway as `pubmed__pubmed_fetch_articles`
- Provider terms: (verified 2026-09-19)
- Upstream API documentation:
- Rate limit: 150 requests per minute
- Attribution required: NCBI's Disclaimer and Copyright notice must be evident to users of your product
## Parameters
- `includeGrants` (boolean, optional): Include grant information Default: `false`.
- `includeMesh` (boolean, optional): Include MeSH terms Default: `true`.
- `maxResponseCharacters` (integer, optional): Opt-in ceiling for the whole response, in characters. Each article is measured as the JSON record it is returned as — title, abstract, authors, journal, MeSH terms, grants, identifiers, every field...
- `pmids` (array, required): PubMed IDs to fetch
## Example call
Request headers and body:
```http
POST /mcp HTTP/1.1
Host: gateway.mcpharbor.dev
Authorization: Bearer
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json, text/event-stream
MCP-Protocol-Version: 2026-07-28
Mcp-Method: tools/call
Mcp-Name: pubmed__pubmed_fetch_articles
```
```json
{
"id": 1,
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"_meta": {
"io.modelcontextprotocol/clientCapabilities": {},
"io.modelcontextprotocol/clientInfo": {
"name": "example-agent",
"version": "1.0.0"
},
"io.modelcontextprotocol/protocolVersion": "2026-07-28"
},
"arguments": {
"pmids": []
},
"name": "pubmed__pubmed_fetch_articles"
}
}
```
A successful response:
```json
{
"id": 1,
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"result": {
"_meta": {
"dev.mcpharbor.gateway/call": {
"chargedMicroUsd": 100,
"id": ""
}
},
"content": [
{
"text": "",
"type": "text"
}
],
"resultType": "complete"
}
}
```
This call costs $0.0001 (100 micro-USD). Reading this page and listing the tool cost nothing.
The `dev.mcpharbor.gateway/call` record in the result is the receipt for that charge. Each
POST is metered separately, so sending the same call again buys another one: see
[agent.txt](https://gateway.mcpharbor.dev/agent.txt), section 7, before retrying.
## Attribution
This provider requires the attribution below wherever you use results from its tools.
Reproduce it verbatim:
> NCBI's Disclaimer and Copyright notice must be evident to users of your product
## Tool definition
Exactly as `tools/list` returns it (free):
```json
{
"_meta": {
"dev.mcpharbor.gateway/pricing": {
"currency": "USD",
"pricePerCallMicroUsd": 100
}
},
"annotations": {
"openWorldHint": true,
"readOnlyHint": true
},
"description": "Fetch full article metadata by PubMed IDs. Returns detailed article information including abstract, authors, journal, MeSH terms. Set `maxResponseCharacters` to bound the whole response: articles past the ceiling are deferred whole and listed in `deferred.ids` for a follow-up call.",
"inputSchema": {
"$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"additionalProperties": false,
"properties": {
"includeGrants": {
"default": false,
"description": "Include grant information",
"type": "boolean"
},
"includeMesh": {
"default": true,
"description": "Include MeSH terms",
"type": "boolean"
},
"maxResponseCharacters": {
"description": "Opt-in ceiling for the whole response, in characters. Each article is measured as the JSON record it is returned as — title, abstract, authors, journal, MeSH terms, grants, identifiers, every field it carries. Articles are kept in response order until the next one would cross the ceiling; that article and the rest are deferred whole (never partially populated) and listed in `deferred.ids`. Response envelope fields — counts, `unavailablePmids`, `deferred` itself — are not counted. Omit to return every resolved article.",
"maximum": 1000000,
"minimum": 1,
"type": "integer"
},
"pmids": {
"description": "PubMed IDs to fetch",
"items": {
"pattern": "^\\d+$",
"type": "string"
},
"maxItems": 200,
"minItems": 1,
"type": "array"
}
},
"required": [
"pmids"
],
"type": "object"
},
"name": "pubmed__pubmed_fetch_articles",
"outputSchema": {
"$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"additionalProperties": false,
"anyOf": [
{
"not": {
"required": [
"error"
]
},
"required": [
"articles",
"totalReturned"
]
},
{
"required": [
"error"
]
}
],
"properties": {
"articles": {
"description": "Parsed articles",
"items": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "Parsed PubMed article",
"properties": {
"abstractText": {
"description": "Abstract text",
"type": "string"
},
"affiliations": {
"description": "Deduplicated author affiliations",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"articleDates": {
"description": "Article dates",
"items": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "Dated article event",
"properties": {
"dateType": {
"description": "Date type",
"type": "string"
},
"day": {
"description": "Day",
"type": "string"
},
"month": {
"description": "Month",
"type": "string"
},
"year": {
"description": "Year",
"type": "string"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"type": "array"
},
"authors": {
"description": "Author list. On a `book-chapter` these are the chapter's own authors, never the book's editors, which are in `book.editors`. Empty on a Bookshelf record that credits neither.",
"items": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "Author record",
"properties": {
"affiliationIndices": {
"description": "Indices into the top-level affiliations array",
"items": {
"type": "number"
},
"type": "array"
},
"collectiveName": {
"description": "Group/collective author name",
"type": "string"
},
"firstName": {
"description": "First/given name",
"type": "string"
},
"initials": {
"description": "Author initials",
"type": "string"
},
"lastName": {
"description": "Last name",
"type": "string"
},
"orcid": {
"description": "ORCID identifier",
"type": "string"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"type": "array"
},
"book": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "The containing book of a `book-chapter`, or the book itself on a `book` record. Present only on those two record types, and never a stand-in for `journalInfo`.",
"properties": {
"accession": {
"description": "NCBI Bookshelf accession from `ArticleIdList` (`bookaccession`), e.g. \"NBK1247\". The record is readable at `https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books//`.",
"type": "string"
},
"beginningDate": {
"description": "First year of a continuously-updated book, from `Book/BeginningDate` (GeneReviews runs from 1993). Absent on a book published once.",
"type": "string"
},
"collectionTitle": {
"description": "Series the book belongs to, from `Book/CollectionTitle` (e.g. \"ADA Clinical Compendia Series\"). Absent for a book outside a series.",
"type": "string"
},
"doi": {
"description": "The book's own DOI, from `Book/ELocationID` with `EIdType=\"doi\"`. Distinct from the record-level `doi`, which is the chapter's: a chapter does not inherit this one.",
"type": "string"
},
"edition": {
"description": "Edition statement from `Book/Edition`. Rare on Bookshelf titles — absent unless NCBI supplies one.",
"type": "string"
},
"editors": {
"description": "Editors of the containing book, from `Book/AuthorList` marked `Type=\"editors\"`. Kept out of `authors`, which carries the chapter's own writers. Absent when the book credits no editors.",
"items": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "One editor of the containing book. Name parts only — editors are a citation credit, not a contributor record, so no affiliations or ORCID are reported for them.",
"properties": {
"collectiveName": {
"description": "Group or committee credited as editor, when the entry names an organization rather than a person. Mutually exclusive with the name-part fields.",
"type": "string"
},
"firstName": {
"description": "Editor given name as NCBI supplies it (`ForeName`, often \"Margaret P\"). Absent when NCBI carries initials only, or on a group editor.",
"type": "string"
},
"initials": {
"description": "Editor initials with no separators (e.g. \"MP\"). Absent when NCBI supplies none, or on a group editor.",
"type": "string"
},
"lastName": {
"description": "Editor surname, from the book's `Book/AuthorList Type=\"editors\"` entry. Absent on a group editor, which carries `collectiveName` instead.",
"type": "string"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"type": "array"
},
"endingDate": {
"description": "Last year of a closed date range, from `Book/EndingDate`. Absent while a book is still being updated, which leaves the range open-ended.",
"type": "string"
},
"isbns": {
"description": "Every `Book/Isbn` on the record. A book commonly carries a print and an electronic ISBN, so this is a list. Absent for a Bookshelf title with no ISBN, which is most of them.",
"items": {
"description": "One ISBN, verbatim as NCBI reports it — leading zeros intact",
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"medium": {
"description": "Medium the book is published in, from `Book/Medium` — \"Internet\" wherever NCBI supplies it. Absent when NCBI supplies none; it is never defaulted.",
"type": "string"
},
"pubDate": {
"description": "Publication year from `Book/PubDate`. Year only — NCBI's month and day are not reported, since no citation style uses them for a book.",
"type": "string"
},
"publisher": {
"description": "Publisher of the book, from `Book/Publisher/PublisherName`.",
"type": "string"
},
"publisherLocation": {
"description": "Place of publication, from `Book/Publisher/PublisherLocation` (e.g. \"Seattle (WA)\"). Absent when NCBI supplies no place.",
"type": "string"
},
"title": {
"description": "Title of the containing book, from `Book/BookTitle` (e.g. \"GeneReviews®\"). On a `book` record this is the same value as the record's own `title`.",
"type": "string"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"doi": {
"description": "DOI, cased as NCBI reports it (usually the publisher's mixed case). DOIs are case-insensitive by spec and no case normalization is applied here, so the same DOI can arrive in a different case from `pubmed_europepmc_search` and `pubmed_europepmc_fetch` (NCBI `10.1056/NEJMoa2212948`, Europe PMC `10.1056/nejmoa2212948`) — a byte-for-byte comparison across the two reports a false mismatch.",
"type": "string"
},
"grantList": {
"description": "Grant information",
"items": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "Grant record",
"properties": {
"acronym": {
"description": "Grant acronym",
"type": "string"
},
"agency": {
"description": "Funding agency",
"type": "string"
},
"country": {
"description": "Agency country",
"type": "string"
},
"grantId": {
"description": "Grant identifier",
"type": "string"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"type": "array"
},
"journalInfo": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "Journal information. Present on `journal-article` records only — absent on `book-chapter` and `book` records, because a Bookshelf record has no journal and its book title is never reported as one; read `book` for those. (#114)",
"properties": {
"eIssn": {
"description": "Electronic ISSN",
"type": "string"
},
"elocationId": {
"description": "Electronic article locator from NCBI `ELocationID` — the publisher-assigned article number (e.g. \"2400512\"). Journals that assign article numbers instead of pages often omit pagination entirely, leaving this the only locator. Never a substitute for `pages`, and never the DOI: a DOI-typed `ELocationID` is reported in `doi` instead. Absent when the only locator NCBI supplies is marked invalid.",
"type": "string"
},
"elocationIdType": {
"description": "Type of `elocationId`, from NCBI's `EIdType` attribute — \"pii\" in practice. Free-form: NCBI does not close the set, so treat an unfamiliar value as opaque.",
"type": "string"
},
"isoAbbreviation": {
"description": "ISO journal abbreviation",
"type": "string"
},
"issn": {
"description": "Print ISSN",
"type": "string"
},
"issue": {
"description": "Issue number",
"type": "string"
},
"pages": {
"description": "Page range (e.g. \"48-55\")",
"type": "string"
},
"publicationDate": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "Journal publication date",
"properties": {
"day": {
"description": "Publication day",
"type": "string"
},
"medlineDate": {
"description": "Non-standard date string (e.g. \"2000 Spring\")",
"type": "string"
},
"month": {
"description": "Publication month",
"type": "string"
},
"year": {
"description": "Publication year",
"type": "string"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"title": {
"description": "Full journal title",
"type": "string"
},
"volume": {
"description": "Volume number",
"type": "string"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"keywords": {
"description": "Keywords",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"meshTerms": {
"description": "MeSH terms",
"items": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "MeSH descriptor term",
"properties": {
"descriptorName": {
"description": "MeSH descriptor name",
"type": "string"
},
"descriptorUi": {
"description": "MeSH descriptor unique ID",
"type": "string"
},
"isMajorTopic": {
"description": "Whether this is a major topic of the article",
"type": "boolean"
},
"qualifiers": {
"description": "MeSH qualifiers/subheadings",
"items": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "MeSH qualifier/subheading",
"properties": {
"isMajorTopic": {
"description": "Whether this qualifier is a major topic",
"type": "boolean"
},
"qualifierName": {
"description": "Qualifier/subheading name",
"type": "string"
},
"qualifierUi": {
"description": "Qualifier unique ID",
"type": "string"
}
},
"required": [
"qualifierName",
"isMajorTopic"
],
"type": "object"
},
"type": "array"
}
},
"required": [
"isMajorTopic"
],
"type": "object"
},
"type": "array"
},
"pmcId": {
"description": "PMC ID",
"type": "string"
},
"pmcUrl": {
"description": "PMC full text URL",
"type": "string"
},
"pmid": {
"description": "PubMed ID",
"type": "string"
},
"publicationTypes": {
"description": "Publication types",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"pubmedUrl": {
"description": "PubMed article URL",
"type": "string"
},
"recordType": {
"description": "Which kind of PubMed record this is, set from the XML element it arrived in: `journal-article` for an ordinary article, `book-chapter` for an NCBI Bookshelf chapter, `book` for a whole Bookshelf book. Read this to tell the three apart — `publicationTypes` cannot, because PubMed labels a Bookshelf record \"Review\" or \"Study Guide\". `journalInfo` is present only on `journal-article`; `book` only on the other two.",
"enum": [
"journal-article",
"book-chapter",
"book"
],
"type": "string"
},
"title": {
"description": "Article title — the chapter title on a `book-chapter`, and the book title on a `book` record, where it repeats `book.title`.",
"type": "string"
}
},
"required": [
"recordType"
],
"type": "object"
},
"type": "array"
},
"deferred": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"description": "Continuation state for articles the whole-response budget withheld. Present only when `maxResponseCharacters` deferred at least one article.",
"properties": {
"deferredCount": {
"description": "Articles that resolved but were withheld to stay under the ceiling",
"type": "number"
},
"ids": {
"description": "PMIDs of the deferred articles, in response order. Re-call `pubmed_fetch_articles` with these as `pmids` and the same other inputs to retrieve them. Never contains a PMID from `unavailablePmids`.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"maxResponseCharacters": {
"description": "The `maxResponseCharacters` ceiling this response was budgeted against",
"type": "number"
},
"nextDeferredCharacters": {
"description": "Serialized size of the next deferred article — the first entry in `ids`, where the response stopped. Raise `maxResponseCharacters` to at least this to make progress; a smaller article further down `ids` cannot be reached until this one fits.",
"type": "number"
},
"returnedCharacters": {
"description": "Serialized characters the returned article records account for",
"type": "number"
}
},
"required": [
"maxResponseCharacters",
"returnedCharacters",
"deferredCount",
"ids",
"nextDeferredCharacters"
],
"type": "object"
},
"error": {
"additionalProperties": {},
"description": "Present when the call failed. Absent on success.",
"properties": {
"code": {
"description": "JSON-RPC error code for this failure.",
"maximum": 9007199254740991,
"minimum": -9007199254740991,
"type": "integer"
},
"data": {
"additionalProperties": {},
"properties": {
"reason": {
"description": "Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `queue_full`: Local NCBI request queue is at capacity. `ncbi_unreachable`: NCBI E-utilities is unreachable after all retry attempts. `ncbi_deadline_exceeded`: Total request deadline expired before NCBI returned a response. `ncbi_invalid_response`: NCBI returned a body that could not be parsed (invalid XML/JSON). `ncbi_resource_not_found`: NCBI returned a structured \"not found\" error for the requested ID(s). `invalid_efetch_response`: NCBI EFetch returned a payload missing the PubmedArticleSet wrapper. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler.",
"examples": [
"queue_full",
"ncbi_unreachable",
"ncbi_deadline_exceeded",
"ncbi_invalid_response",
"ncbi_resource_not_found",
"invalid_efetch_response"
],
"type": "string"
},
"recovery": {
"additionalProperties": {},
"description": "Actionable next step for the caller.",
"properties": {
"hint": {
"type": "string"
}
},
"required": [
"hint"
],
"type": "object"
},
"retryable": {
"description": "Whether retrying may succeed.",
"type": "boolean"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"message": {
"description": "Human-readable description of what went wrong.",
"type": "string"
}
},
"required": [
"code",
"message"
],
"type": "object"
},
"notice": {
"description": "Optional guidance when no articles were returned — points to discovery tools — or when `maxResponseCharacters` deferred articles, naming how to retrieve them. Absent on successful unbudgeted fetches.",
"type": "string"
},
"totalReturned": {
"description": "Number of articles in this response. Under a `maxResponseCharacters` budget this counts the kept articles only; `deferred.deferredCount` covers the rest.",
"type": "number"
},
"truncated": {
"description": "True when `maxResponseCharacters` withheld at least one resolved article. Absent when the response carries every article that resolved. The continuation state is in `deferred`.",
"type": "boolean"
},
"unavailablePmids": {
"description": "PMIDs PubMed returned no record for. That is all this reports: PubMed omits an unknown PMID silently, with no error and no reason, so the absence says nothing about whether the PMID exists. Reported in full regardless of where a `maxResponseCharacters` cutoff lands — these are misses, not deferrals. Use `pubmed_search_articles` to find PMIDs that do resolve.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
}
},
"type": "object"
},
"title": "Pubmed Fetch Articles"
}
```