Deploying the OpenMed MCP server

openmed.mcp.server exposes OpenMed's clinical NLP as Model Context Protocol tools, so coding agents (Claude Code, Codex) and chat clients can de-identify and analyze clinical text by calling tools instead of writing glue code. It runs on-device — models are local, no telemetry — and the server instructs clients to send real PHI only to instances the user operates.

When to use this skill

When an agent or LLM client should be able to invoke OpenMed: add it to a coding agent's MCP config, give a chat client de-id/NER tools, or run a shared MCP endpoint for a team. For programmatic HTTP from your own services, prefer serving-openmed-rest-api; for corpora, batch-processing-clinical-text.

Quick start

pip install "openmed[mcp]"                 # FastMCP / MCP SDK

# stdio transport (what coding agents spawn): default
python -m openmed.mcp.server

# Streamable HTTP transport (network-reachable):
python -m openmed.mcp.server --transport streamable-http --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8081

# Or embed it:
from openmed.mcp.server import create_mcp_server
server = create_mcp_server()              # FastMCP("OpenMed", ...) with tools+resources+prompts
server.run(transport="stdio")             # or "streamable-http"

CLI flags (build_arg_parser): --transport {stdio,streamable-http,http}, --host, --port, --streamable-http-path (default /mcp), --version. Env equivalents: OPENMED_MCP_TRANSPORT, OPENMED_MCP_HOST, OPENMED_MCP_PORT (8081), OPENMED_MCP_PATH.

The 7 tools (confirmed in openmed/mcp/server.py)

It also registers resources — openmed://models, openmed://pii-languages, openmed://examples (synthetic) — and prompts openmed-clinical-ner and openmed-pii-deidentify that nudge the agent toward safe, correct calls.

Adding it to a coding agent

// Claude Code: .mcp.json (or ~/.claude.json) — stdio transport
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openmed": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "openmed.mcp.server"],
      "env": { "OPENMED_PROFILE": "prod" }
    }
  }
}

For a shared HTTP deployment, run --transport streamable-http and point the client at http://<host>:8081/mcp. The agent then sees the 7 tools and can call e.g. openmed_deidentify on a snippet before sending it elsewhere.

Runtime config

The MCP server shares OpenMed's ServiceRuntime (ServiceRuntime.from_env()), so the same env vars as the REST service apply: OPENMED_PROFILE, OPENMED_SERVICE_PRELOAD_MODELS, OPENMED_SERVICE_KEEP_ALIVE, OPENMED_SERVICE_MAX_RESIDENT_MODELS. Preload to avoid first-call latency; openmed_unload_model/openmed_loaded_models let an agent manage memory.

Running in Docker

FROM python:3.11-slim
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir "openmed[mcp]"
ENV OPENMED_MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable-http \
    OPENMED_MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 OPENMED_MCP_PORT=8081 \
    OPENMED_SERVICE_PRELOAD_MODELS="OpenMed/OpenMed-PII-SuperClinical-Small-44M-v1"
EXPOSE 8081
CMD ["python", "-m", "openmed.mcp.server"]

stdio servers are spawned by the client and don't need a port; use HTTP only for shared/remote access, behind your own auth proxy. Mount the model cache so the container starts offline.

Workflow

1. Install + launch. pip install "openmed[mcp]", then python -m openmed.mcp.server (stdio) or --transport streamable-http for a shared endpoint.
2. Configure the runtime via the ServiceRuntime env vars (profile, preload, keep-alive, max resident) so first calls aren't cold.
3. Register with the client. Add the mcpServers entry (stdio command, or HTTP URL) to the agent's config; the 7 tools, resources, and prompts appear.
4. Front HTTP with auth/TLS if remote — the server has none built in; keep stdio/local for untrusted-network scenarios.
5. Let the agent call tools (openmed_deidentify before sharing a snippet, openmed_analyze_text for NER), and discover models via openmed_list_models rather than hardcoding.
6. Manage memory with openmed_loaded_models / openmed_unload_model.

Hand-off to / from OpenMed

• Same engine: each tool calls openmed.analyze_text / extract_pii / deidentify through the shared runtime — identical results to the library and the REST service.
• REST sibling: serving-openmed-rest-api exposes the same operations as HTTP routes for non-agent callers.
• Discovery: openmed_list_models / openmed_list_pii_languages mirror the library's list_* functions — agents should query, not hardcode.

Edge cases & gotchas

• stdio vs HTTP. Coding agents spawn the server over stdio (default) and manage its lifecycle; use streamable-http only for a shared endpoint, and put auth/TLS in front of it (the server has none built in).
• PHI trust boundary. The server's instructions tell clients to send real PHI only to instances the user controls. Keep it local/self-hosted; don't point agents at an OpenMed MCP you don't operate.
• keep_mapping=True returns a re-identification map in the openmed_deidentify response — only enable for trusted agents, treat the mapping as PHI, never log it.
• No raw PHI in logs. Don't add transcript/body logging around the server.
• Use synthetic examples in docs/tests/prompts — the bundled openmed://examples resource is synthetic on purpose.
• --transport http is accepted as an alias for streamable-http.

Standards & references

• Model Context Protocol specification: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/
• MCP transports (stdio, Streamable HTTP): https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/concepts/transports
• Claude Code MCP configuration: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/mcp
• OpenMed source: openmed/mcp/server.py (create_mcp_server, the 7 tools, resources, prompts, main/build_arg_parser).