Claude PubMed connectorWhat Claude can look up in PubMed for you.
The Claude PubMed connector exposes 7 tools, all 7 of them reading, 0 writing, 0 undocumented. Here: what Claude can find in the biomedical literature, what it asks before acting, where the archive stops, and who in your organization can switch it off.
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What changes when Claude can search PubMed
Instead of running a query on the PubMed site, opening each abstract and copying references by hand, you ask Claude a research question in plain words. It queries the database itself, pulls the details of the papers that matter, and answers in the conversation with the sources attached. This connector, published by Anthropic, opens a public archive: no personal PubMed account is connected behind it.
A literature scan on a precise question. You need recent trials on a drug interaction: search_articles finds candidate papers, then get_article_metadata brings back the detailed record of the ones worth reading.
A broken reference repaired. You have an author, a journal and a year but no identifier: lookup_article_by_citation matches the paper from those citation details, and convert_article_ids turns a PMID into a DOI or a PMCID for the bibliography.
Reading the whole paper, not just the summary. When the article sits in PubMed Central, get_full_text_article lets Claude work from the full text, and get_copyright_status returns the copyright information PubMed holds before you quote large parts.
Now what the directory sheet does not say. PubMed only indexes biomedicine and the life sciences: physics, astrophysics, computer science or non-medical economics and psychology are outside its scope, and the server itself points to other databases for those. Full text exists only for papers held in PubMed Central. And nothing runs on its own: no tool wakes up when a new paper on your topic is published. For a recurring watch of that kind you need an automation tool, which is a different job; the Integrations hub gathers that side.
The vocabulary in one minute
Five words you will meet while setting this up.
- Connector
- The link you set up once between Claude and an outside service, so Claude can work with it while it answers you.
- Tool
- One named thing a connector lets Claude do. Claude picks the ones it needs on its own, and the directory sheet lists them by name.
- Authorization
- The service's own sign-in screen, where a person hands Claude the access it will use. Granted once per person, and it can be taken back.
- Approval
- The confirmation Claude waits for before it goes ahead with something that changes an account, shown in the chat when it matters.
- MCP
- The shared standard connectors are built on: it is what lets an assistant such as Claude talk to a service outside it.
Setting up the Claude PubMed connector in three steps
- 01
Find PubMed in Claude
Open Claude's settings, go to Customize, then Connectors, and look for PubMed in the list. On a Team or Enterprise workspace, an Owner or Primary Owner has to enable the connector first before members can use it.
- 02
Add it from its row
Click Connect on the PubMed row. If a window from the service opens, complete it there. A link that stops working is fixed by clicking Disconnect, then connecting again.
- 03
Read any authorization screen
When an authorization screen shows up, read it before you accept. It belongs to the service, not to Claude, and it is what sets the scope of the access you are handing over.
The 7 tools, split by what they do
PubMed gives Claude 7 tools: 7 that read your account, 0 that change something in it.
All seven read the PubMed database and PubMed Central. Names stay exactly as Claude displays them.
- 7 read
What Claude reads (7)
7 toolsSeven tools that look things up in the literature and change nothing.
search_articles
Runs a query against PubMed and returns the biomedical or life sciences research articles that match it.
get_article_metadata
Brings back the detailed metadata PubMed holds for a given paper, abstract included, so Claude answers from the record rather than from memory.
find_related_articles
Starting from one paper, surfaces other articles and resources PubMed links to it, which widens a search without rewriting the query.
lookup_article_by_citation
Finds a paper from its citation details rather than from keywords, a direct way to recover a reference you only noted in part.
convert_article_ids
Translates one identifier into another among PMID, PMCID and DOI, so each reference ends up in the format your journal or reference manager expects.
get_full_text_article
Retrieves the complete text of a paper from PubMed Central, so Claude can answer from the body of the article rather than from the abstract alone.
get_copyright_status
Reports the copyright information PubMed holds for an article, to check before you reuse part of its content. Like the six other tools, the server annotates it as read-only: the record stays as it is.
What Claude asks before it acts
By default, Claude stops and asks for your go-ahead before any action it takes on an account on your behalf. The request shows up in the conversation at the moment it matters.
Here, the seven tools published on the sheet only look things up, and the server labels each of them as read-only. No source says whether Claude still asks before a PubMed search, so the default rule above is what applies. On Team and Enterprise workspaces, owners decide whether members may let certain actions through without being asked every time, and they can limit what a connector may do for the whole organization. That setting binds everyone.
Which plans include it
None of the 819 sheets in the official directory shows availability by plan. The answer, connector by connector, is not published anywhere: a real gap in the catalogue.
The general rule is published: remote connectors are open to all users on Claude, Cowork, Claude Desktop and mobile. On Team and Enterprise, an Owner or Primary Owner enables a connector for the organization before members can use it. For the current state, check the PubMed sheet in the official directory.
Where this connector stops
A connector is not an automation. Claude calls these tools while it answers you: nothing starts when a paper is published, retracted or updated.
By default the sheet only exposes reading, and that is an observed floor, not a promise: an administrator can open actions that appear on no public sheet. This connector has no Claude help article of its own; what we know comes from the directory sheet and from the tool list its server publishes. The directory's verified badge is not a security audit either, and Anthropic writes on every sheet that it does not control which tools a publisher exposes.
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