🩺 Cochrane MCP

Search the world's gold-standard medical evidence — Cochrane systematic reviews and trials — straight from your AI assistant.

cochrane_search · cochrane_get_details · cochrane_suggest_terms

Cochrane MCP turns the Cochrane Library into a tool your AI agent can use directly: ask a clinical question and get real, citeable evidence — systematic reviews, randomised trials, plain-language summaries, and structured PICO data — instead of a guess.

It runs as a Model Context Protocol server (works in Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and any MCP client) and ships as a one-command Claude Code plugin.

✨ What you can do

• Search every Cochrane database — Reviews (CDSR), Protocols, Trials (CENTRAL), Editorials, Special Collections, and Clinical Answers — and see counts across all of them in one call.
• Pull rich details by DOI — structured abstract (Background → Conclusions), the Plain Language Summary, PICO (Population/Intervention/Comparison/Outcome), related articles, and PDF/HTML links.
• Search smarter — autocomplete suggestions, field-specific search (title, author, keyword, DOI…), date ranges, and relevance/date sorting.
• Just works behind Cloudflare — the server clears Cochrane's bot protection automatically (see Browser setup).

🚀 Quick start (Claude Code plugin)

/plugin marketplace add aliildan/cochrane-mcp
/plugin install cochrane@cochrane-marketplace
/reload-plugins

Then just ask, or use the bundled command:

/cochrane statins for primary prevention

The plugin runs the published package via npx -y cochrane-mcp@latest — no build step, no cloning. The first run downloads the package (and, for the self-launch browser fallback, a bundled Chromium).

💬 Usage examples

1. The /cochrane slash command

/cochrane vitamin D for preventing asthma exacerbations

Claude: Cochrane has 3 reviews on this (plus 412 trials, 2 clinical answers). | # | Title | Authors | Year | DOI | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Vitamin D for the management of asthma | Williamson A, et al. | 2023 | 10.1002/14651858.CD011511.pub3 | | … | | | | | Want the full abstract + plain-language summary for #1, or should I check the trials?

2. Let the skill trigger naturally

The bundled cochrane skill activates on evidence questions — no command needed:

You: Is paracetamol or ibuprofen better for fever in children, according to Cochrane?

Claude searches CDSR, surfaces the relevant review, calls cochrane_get_details, and quotes the Authors' conclusions with the DOI to cite.

3. Call the tools directly

You: Search Cochrane trials (not reviews) for "semaglutide", newest first.

→ cochrane_search({ query: "semaglutide", type: "central", orderBy: "date-desc" })

You: Give me the plain-language summary and PICO for DOI 10.1002/14651858.CD012116.pub2.

→ cochrane_get_details({ doi: "10.1002/14651858.CD012116.pub2" })

You: I'm not sure how to spell it — suggest Cochrane terms for "azithro".

→ cochrane_suggest_terms({ query: "azithro" }) → ["azithromycin", "azithromycin dihydrate", …]

4. Refine a search

You: Same search but only reviews from 2020 onward, by title.

→ cochrane_search({ query: "semaglutide", type: "review", searchField: "record-title", yearFrom: 2020, orderBy: "date-desc" })

🧰 Tools

| Tool | Input | Returns | |---|---|---| | cochrane_search | query, type?, searchField?, orderBy?, page?, resultsPerPage?, yearFrom?, yearTo? | total, typeCounts (all 6 content types), and a page of items | | cochrane_get_details | doi | Reviews → metadata + structured abstract + plain-language summary + PICO + related articles. Trials → metadata + source registry. (Type inferred from the DOI.) | | cochrane_suggest_terms | query | { suggestions: string[] } autocomplete |

• type: review · protocol · central (trials) · editorial · specialcollections · cca
• searchField: title-abstract-keyword (default) · record-title · abstract · author · keyword · all-text · source · doi · accession-number · cochrane-group
• orderBy: relevancy (default) · title-asc · title-desc · date-desc · date-asc

{
  "total": 127,
  "page": 1,
  "resultsPerPage": 25,
  "typeCounts": { "review": 127, "protocol": 7, "central": 17202, "editorial": 2, "specialcollections": 0, "cca": 18 },
  "items": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "title": "Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) for schizophrenia",
      "doi": "10.1002/14651858.CD012116.pub2",
      "url": "https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD012116.pub2/full",
      "authors": "Lena Schmidt, Emma Phelps, Johannes Friedel, Farhad Shokraneh",
      "contentType": "Intervention",
      "stage": "Review",
      "date": "10 August 2019",
      "access": "Free access"
    }
  ]
}

🌐 Browser setup (automatic)

Cochrane sits behind a Cloudflare challenge that plain HTTP clients can't pass. Cochrane MCP solves this with a real browser, then replays the resulting cf_clearance cookie in fast fetch calls — so most of the work is lightweight HTTP, not a heavy browser per request. You normally configure nothing. On each mint the server:

1. Explicit — attaches to COCHRANE_CDP_ENDPOINT if you set it.
2. Discover — probes 127.0.0.1:9222 / :9444. If a Chrome with remote debugging is already running and holds clearance, it's reused. Connecting is read-only and never closes your browser.
3. Self-launch — otherwise launches its own Chrome (system Chrome, else a bundled Chromium) with a persistent profile, clears the challenge, and reuses the cookie for later runs.

The one manual moment: if Cloudflare escalates to an interactive Turnstile (rare — flagged IP or detected automation), the self-launched window shows it and you click once; the cookie then persists. No software bypasses an interactive Turnstile without a paid CAPTCHA service.

Most reliable hands-off setup: keep a Chrome running with --remote-debugging-port=9222 that has visited cochranelibrary.com once — discovery reuses its organic clearance every time.

The cookie is IP + User-Agent bound, so the server and its browser must run on the same machine.

⚙️ Configuration

| Variable | Default | Effect | |---|---|---| | COCHRANE_CDP_ENDPOINT | — | Attach to this CDP endpoint (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:9444); skips discovery | | COCHRANE_CDP_PORTS | 9222,9444 | Comma-separated localhost ports to probe during discovery | | COCHRANE_PROFILE_DIR | ./.cochrane-profile | Persistent profile dir for self-launch | | COCHRANE_HEADLESS | 0 | 1 to self-launch headless (faster, but more likely to be challenged) |

📦 Manual install (any MCP client)

Point your MCP client at the published package — no clone, no build:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cochrane": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cochrane-mcp@latest"],
      "env": { "COCHRANE_CDP_ENDPOINT": "http://127.0.0.1:9444" }
    }
  }
}

Or install the CLI globally: npm install -g cochrane-mcp then use "command": "cochrane-mcp".

git clone [email protected]:aliildan/cochrane-mcp.git
cd cochrane-mcp
npm install && npm run build      # postinstall also fetches the bundled browser

Then use "command": "node", "args": ["/absolute/path/to/cochrane-mcp/dist/index.js"].

🔄 Updating

The plugin pins an exact published version, so updating is a marketplace refresh + reload:

/plugin marketplace update cochrane-marketplace
/reload-plugins

If an old build seems stuck (npx caches packages), clear the cache once and reload:

rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx/*/node_modules/cochrane-mcp

🩹 Troubleshooting

| Symptom | Fix | |---|---| | CloudflareChallengeError | Start a Chrome with --remote-debugging-port=9222, visit cochranelibrary.com once, retry. Or let the self-launched window appear and solve the one-time challenge. | | Tool returns nothing / 0 results | Check spelling (try cochrane_suggest_terms), widen searchField to all-text, or switch type. | | No browser found / launch fails | Run npm run setup to (re)install the bundled Chromium, or install Google Chrome. |

🛠️ Develop

npm test            # offline parser/engine tests against committed fixtures (no network)
npm run test:watch
COCHRANE_LIVE_TEST=1 npm test           # + live smoke (auto-discovers a running Chrome)

Architecture and the full reverse-engineering write-up live in docs/superpowers/ and CLAUDE.md.

📄 License & disclaimer

Content belongs to Cochrane / John Wiley & Sons. This tool accesses the public website on your behalf; respect Cochrane's terms of use. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Cochrane.