StatPearls MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that fetches disease information from StatPearls, a trusted source of peer-reviewed medical content.

Give your AI system a relaible source of medical knowledge for its next conversation.

Features

Searches for diseases and medical conditions on StatPearls
Retrieve comprehensive, reliable medical information from StatPearls
Convert HTML content to well-formatted Markdown to make it AI-friendly
Integrates with AI models via the Model Context Protocol

If you don't already have a Model Context Protocol (MCP) client:

If you are a casual user, you can use Claude Desktop to get started using MCP servers. It is a free and open-source desktop application that allows you to run MCP servers locally and connect to them.

If you are a power user/developer, I recommend using VSCode with the RooCode extension which enables you to connect in MCP servers to your development environment for infinite possibilities!

Installation

Once you have an MCP-capable AI client, you can run this server locally.

The easiest way to get up and running is to download the appropriate executable/binary for your OS from the releases page. This will give you a self-contained executable that you can run without any additional setup.

Place this executable in a directory of your choice. Then simply add the following to your mcp_settings.json file:

For Windows:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    ...
    "statpearls": {
      "command": "{path_to_executable_here}\\statpearls-mcp.exe"
    },
    ...
  }
}

#### For Mac/Linux:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    ...
    "statpearls": {
      "command": "{path_to_executable_here}/statpearls-mcp"
    },
    ...
  }
}

Installing via Smithery

To install statpearls-mcp for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @jpoles1/statpearls-mcp --client claude

For Developers:

You can also run the server from source. This requires Bun to be installed on your system.

Clone the repository
Install dependencies (bun install)
Compile the server (bun run build)
Now you can add the server to your mcp_settings.json file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    ...
    "statpearls": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "{path_to_proj_here}/dist/index.js"
      ]
    },
    ...
  }
}

Tool Definition

The server provides a single tool:

statpearls_disease_info: Fetches comprehensive, reliable medical information about diseases from StatPearls.

Input Schema

{
  "query": "diabetes",
  "format_options": {
    "includeToc": true,
    "maxLength": 50000
  }
}

query: Disease or medical condition to search for (required)
format_options: Optional formatting preferences
- includeToc: Whether to include a table of contents (default: true)
- maxLength: Maximum length of the returned content in characters (default: 50000)

Example Output

The tool returns formatted Markdown content with:

Title and source information
Table of contents (optional)
Structured sections including etiology, epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical features, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis (when available)

Development

Project Structure

statpearls-mcp/
├── src/                         # Source code
│   ├── index.ts                 # Main entry point and server setup
│   ├── test-html-parser.ts      # Test utility for HTML parser
│   ├── test-statpearls-parser.ts # Test utility for StatPearls parser
│   ├── testrun.ts               # Test runner utility
│   ├── tools/                   # Tool definitions and handlers
│   │   └── statpearls.ts        # StatPearls tool definition and handler
│   ├── services/                # Core functionality services
│   │   ├── search.ts            # Search functionality
│   │   ├── content.ts           # Content retrieval and processing
│   │   └── markdown.ts          # HTML to Markdown conversion
│   ├── types/                   # Type definitions
│   │   ├── index.ts             # Common type definitions
│   │   └── statpearls.ts        # StatPearls-specific type definitions
│   └── utils/                   # Utility functions
│       ├── html.ts              # HTML parsing utilities
│       ├── error.ts             # Error handling utilities
│       └── statpearls-parser.ts # StatPearls content parsing utilities
├── scripts/                     # Build and utility scripts
│   ├── build.ts                 # Build script for creating Node.js compatible bundle
│   ├── compile.ts               # Script for compiling executables
│   ├── release.ts               # Script for handling releases
│   └── version.ts               # Script for managing versioning
├── dist/                        # Build output directory (not in repository)
├── package.json                 # Project configuration and dependencies
├── tsconfig.json                # TypeScript configuration
├── bun.lock                     # Bun dependency lock file
├── README.md                    # Main project documentation
└── RELEASE-PROCESS.md           # Documentation for release process

Building and Releasing

Building

The build process creates a single JavaScript file that can run with vanilla Node.js:

# Production build
bun run build
# or
bun run build:prod

# Development build
bun run build:dev

This creates a bundled file at dist/index.js that includes all dependencies.

Compiling Executables

You can compile platform-specific executables using Bun's compilation feature:

# Compile for all platforms
bun run compile:all

# Compile for specific platforms
bun run compile:linux
bun run compile:windows
bun run compile:mac

This creates executable files in the dist directory:

statpearls-mcp (default executable)
statpearls-mcp-linux-x64 (Linux)
statpearls-mcp-windows-x64.exe (Windows)
statpearls-mcp-darwin-x64 (macOS)

Releasing

The release process handles versioning, building, compiling, and Git operations:

# Release a patch version (bug fixes)
bun run release:patch

# Release a minor version (new features, backward compatible)
bun run release:minor

# Release a major version (breaking changes)
bun run release:major

This process:

Updates the version in package.json
Builds the distribution file
Compiles executables for all platforms
Creates a Git commit with the version number
Creates a Git tag for the version
Pushes the commit and tag to GitHub

Versioning

The project follows semantic versioning. You can check the current version with:

bun run version

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.