pubmed-database

pubmed-database is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop. It costs 58 tokens per session (3,607 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of pubmed-database, MIT.

A programmatic interface to PubMed, a free database of biomedical and life-sciences research articles. It supports detailed searches and retrieval of article information through the PubMed API.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to build Boolean or MeSH searches, find articles by authors or dates, retrieve abstracts and citations, and support literature reviews or monitoring tools.
Why use it?
It makes it possible to search and collect research systematically instead of relying on manual website searches. This is useful when a workflow needs repeatable queries, bulk retrieval, or citation data.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to build Boolean or MeSH searches, find articles by authors or dates, retrieve abstracts and citations, and support literature reviews or monitoring tools.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/pubmed-database
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop --skill pubmed-database
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for pubmed-database

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/pubmed-database/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/pubmed-database)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/pubmed-database"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/pubmed-database/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for pubmed-database

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/pubmed-database"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop/pubmed-database.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 58 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,607 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 98% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00058 $0.03607
Opus 5 $0.00029 $0.01803
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00721
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00361

Measured 8d ago against content hash 31e21d54407f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

pubmed-database scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

response = requests.get(search_url, params=params)
Origin

This is a copy

98% identical to pubmed-database — 7 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

corpus/pubmed-database/SKILL.md · 455 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 455 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

PubMed Database

Overview

PubMed is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's comprehensive database providing free access to MEDLINE and life sciences literature. Construct advanced queries with Boolean operators, MeSH terms, and field tags, access data programmatically via E-utilities API for systematic reviews and literature analysis.

When to Use This Skill

This skill should be used when:

  • Searching for biomedical or life sciences research articles
  • Constructing complex search queries with Boolean operators, field tags, or MeSH terms
  • Conducting systematic literature reviews or meta-analyses
  • Accessing PubMed data programmatically via the E-utilities API
  • Finding articles by specific criteria (author, journal, publication date, article type)
  • Retrieving citation information, abstracts, or full-text articles
  • Working with PMIDs (PubMed IDs) or DOIs
  • Creating automated workflows for literature monitoring or data extraction

Core Capabilities

1. Advanced Search Query Construction

Construct sophisticated PubMed queries using Boolean operators, field tags, and specialized syntax.

Basic Search Strategies:

  • Combine concepts with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
  • Use field tags to limit searches to specific record parts
  • Employ phrase searching with double quotes for exact matches
  • Apply wildcards for term variations
  • Use proximity searching for terms within specified distances

Example Queries:

# Recent systematic reviews on diabetes treatment
diabetes mellitus[mh] AND treatment[tiab] AND systematic review[pt] AND 2023:2024[dp]

# Clinical trials comparing two drugs
(metformin[nm] OR insulin[nm]) AND diabetes mellitus, type 2[mh] AND randomized controlled trial[pt]

# Author-specific research
smith ja[au] AND cancer[tiab] AND 2023[dp] AND english[la]

When to consult search_syntax.md:

  • Need comprehensive list of available field tags
  • Require detailed explanation of search operators
  • Constructing complex proximity searches
  • Understanding automatic term mapping behavior
  • Need specific syntax for date ranges, wildcards, or special characters

Read the full file on GitHub · 455 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 455 lines · 58 tokens per session scan A 31e21d54407f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

pubmed-database is a skill published in the GitHub repository silverstein/claude-scientific-skills-desktop (22 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 58 tokens to every session and 3,607 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). It is 98% identical to pubmed-database, differing in 7 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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