Agent skill

Pmc Ftp Bulk Download

by wentorai in wentorai/research-plugins

Bulk download PMC Open Access articles via FTP for large-scale mining

MITAuto-check passedResearch & Science

Install Pmc Ftp Bulk Download

skills CLI
$ npx skills add wentorai/research-plugins --skill pmc-ftp-bulk-download -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install wentorai/research-plugins pmc-ftp-bulk-download --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wentorai/research-plugins.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/literature/fulltext/pmc-ftp-bulk-download .claude/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
pmc-ftp-bulk-download
GitHub stars
298
Used in
1 other repo
Token cost
~1.5k tokens
SKILL.md length
253 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
405
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Bulk download PMC Open Access articles via FTP for large-scale mining

  • Research & Science work in your project
  • SKILL.md covers Overview, FTP Access Points, Download Strategies and PMC ID Cross-Referencing, plus 3 more sections
  • Calls wget and curl; reaches ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

What it does

Pmc Ftp Bulk Download is an agent skill from wentorai/research-plugins. Bulk download PMC Open Access articles via FTP for large-scale mining

Its SKILL.md is about 1.5k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Research & Science. The repository describes itself as: 350+ academic research skills, MCP configs, and plugins for Research-Claw and AI agents. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Research & Science work in your project

Example prompts

  • “/pmc-ftp-bulk-download”

Requirements

  • Python 3

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit bf44b3c. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • wget
    • curl

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

    • ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
    • ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Pmc Ftp Bulk Download loads about 1.5k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 23 tokens; SKILL.md has 253 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~23
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.5k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from wentorai/research-plugins at commit bf44b3c, republished under its MIT licence (© wentorai). 253 words, ~1,503 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
pmc-ftp-bulk-download
description
Bulk download PMC Open Access articles via FTP for large-scale mining

PMC FTP Bulk Download

Overview

The PMC FTP Service provides bulk download access to millions of full-text articles from PubMed Central's Open Access Subset. Unlike the single-article APIs (E-utilities, BioC), the FTP service is designed for large-scale corpus construction — downloading entire collections for text mining, NLP training, systematic reviews, and bibliometric analysis. Free, no authentication required.

Note: PMC is migrating to AWS-based Cloud Service in August 2026. FTP paths may change; check official docs for updates.

FTP Access Points

Connection
bash
# FTP (classic)
ftp ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
# Navigate to: /pub/pmc

# HTTPS alternative (recommended)
# Base: https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/
Available Datasets
DatasetPathContentFormat
OA Commercial/pub/pmc/oa_comm/CC BY/CC0 articles (commercial use OK).tar.gz packages
OA Non-Commercial/pub/pmc/oa_noncomm/CC BY-NC articles.tar.gz packages
OA Other/pub/pmc/oa_other/Other open licenses.tar.gz packages
Author Manuscripts/pub/pmc/manuscript/NIH-funded manuscripts.tar.gz packages
Historical OCR/pub/pmc/historical_ocr/Pre-digital scanned articles.tar.gz
File lists/pub/pmc/oa_file_list.csvIndex of all OA articlesCSV
File List Index

Download the master index to plan your downloads:

bash
# Download the OA file list (CSV, ~200MB)
wget https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_file_list.csv

# CSV columns:
# File, Article Citation, AccessionID, LastUpdated, PMID, License

Download Strategies

Strategy 1: Download Specific Articles
python
import requests
import tarfile
import io
import csv

def download_article_package(pmcid: str, base_url: str = "https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc"):
    """Download and extract a specific PMC article package."""
    # First, look up the file path from the file list
    # (In practice, you'd load this once and index by PMCID)
    file_list_url = f"{base_url}/oa_file_list.csv"
    # ... lookup pmcid in file list to get path ...

    # Download the tar.gz package
    resp = requests.get(f"{base_url}/{file_path}", stream=True)
    resp.raise_for_status()

    # Extract
    with tarfile.open(fileobj=io.BytesIO(resp.content), mode="r:gz") as tar:
        tar.extractall(path=f"./articles/{pmcid}")
    print(f"Extracted {pmcid}")
Strategy 2: Bulk Download by License
bash
#!/bin/bash
# Download all commercial-use articles (CC BY / CC0)
# WARNING: This is ~100GB+ compressed

mkdir -p pmc_corpus/commercial
cd pmc_corpus/commercial

# Download the baseline (all current articles)
wget -r -np -nH --cut-dirs=3 \
  https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_comm/xml/

# Incremental updates (run periodically)
wget -r -np -nH --cut-dirs=3 -N \
  https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_comm/xml/
Strategy 3: Filtered Download via File List
python
import csv
import requests
from pathlib import Path

def download_filtered_corpus(file_list_path: str, output_dir: str,
                              license_filter: str = "CC BY",
                              max_articles: int = 1000):
    """Download articles matching a license filter."""
    output = Path(output_dir)
    output.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
    base = "https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc"
    downloaded = 0

    with open(file_list_path) as f:
        reader = csv.DictReader(f)
        for row in reader:
            if license_filter and license_filter not in row.get("License", ""):
                continue
            if downloaded >= max_articles:
                break

            file_path = row["File"]
            url = f"{base}/{file_path}"
            local_path = output / Path(file_path).name

            if local_path.exists():
                continue

            resp = requests.get(url, stream=True, timeout=60)
            if resp.status_code == 200:
                local_path.write_bytes(resp.content)
                downloaded += 1
                if downloaded % 100 == 0:
                    print(f"Downloaded {downloaded} articles...")

    print(f"Total downloaded: {downloaded}")

PMC ID Cross-Referencing

Convert between different article identifiers:

bash
# PMID → PMCID → DOI conversion
curl "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/utils/idconv/v1.0/?ids=29346600&format=json"

# Batch conversion (up to 200 IDs)
curl "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/utils/idconv/v1.0/?ids=29346600,30266829,31048553&format=json"

Package Contents

Each article package (.tar.gz) typically contains:

PMC1234567/
├── PMC1234567.xml       # Full text in JATS XML
├── PMC1234567.pdf       # PDF (if available)
├── figure1.jpg          # Figures
├── figure2.jpg
├── table1.html          # Tables (sometimes)
└── supplement1.pdf      # Supplementary materials

Best Practices

  • Start with the file list: Download oa_file_list.csv first and filter locally
  • Respect rate limits: Space requests 0.3s apart for individual downloads
  • Use incremental updates: After initial download, use -N flag to only get new/updated files
  • Check licenses: OA Commercial (CC BY) allows any use; Non-Commercial restricts commercial applications
  • Storage planning: Full OA Subset is ~500GB+ uncompressed

References

© wentorai, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/literature/fulltext/pmc-ftp-bulk-download of wentorai/research-plugins.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit bf44b3c

Used in 1 other repository

We found 1 copy of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 1 other GitHub owner. This page covers the copy in wentorai/research-plugins, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

Compare with similar skills

Pmc Ftp Bulk Download next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

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GitHub Deep Researchbytedance/deer-flow84k4 repos~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Nature Paper CardYuan1z0825/nature-skills47k2 repos~2.1kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Content Research Writerweapp-tailwindcss/weapp-tailwindcss1.9k25 repos~3.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Last30daysmvanhorn/last30days-skill64k—~7.9kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT

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Questions about Pmc Ftp Bulk Download

What does Pmc Ftp Bulk Download do?

Bulk download PMC Open Access articles via FTP for large-scale mining. Pmc Ftp Bulk Download is an agent skill from wentorai/research-plugins.

When should I use Pmc Ftp Bulk Download?

Pmc Ftp Bulk Download fits situations like: research & Science work in your project.

How do I install Pmc Ftp Bulk Download in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add wentorai/research-plugins --skill pmc-ftp-bulk-download -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/literature/fulltext/pmc-ftp-bulk-download in wentorai/research-plugins) into .claude/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Pmc Ftp Bulk Download in Codex?

Run `npx skills add wentorai/research-plugins --skill pmc-ftp-bulk-download -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/literature/fulltext/pmc-ftp-bulk-download in wentorai/research-plugins) into .agents/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Pmc Ftp Bulk Download in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add wentorai/research-plugins --skill pmc-ftp-bulk-download -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download, .gemini/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download, .github/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download and .opencode/skills/pmc-ftp-bulk-download in your project.

What does Pmc Ftp Bulk Download need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Pmc Ftp Bulk Download needs the command-line tools its instructions call (wget and curl). Our summary lists: Python 3.

Does Pmc Ftp Bulk Download access the network?

SKILL.md names 2 domains. In commands or code: ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; the agent is likely to contact these when it follows the instructions. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Pmc Ftp Bulk Download safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Pmc Ftp Bulk Download use?

Pmc Ftp Bulk Download is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Pmc Ftp Bulk Download use?

About 1.5k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Pmc Ftp Bulk Download?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Pmc Ftp Bulk Download: Hypothesis Generation (spacering-net/codeg, 3.9k stars), GitHub Deep Research (bytedance/deer-flow, 84k stars), Nature Paper Card (Yuan1z0825/nature-skills, 47k stars) and Content Research Writer (weapp-tailwindcss/weapp-tailwindcss, 1.9k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Pmc Ftp Bulk Download?

wentorai (a GitHub user) maintains it in wentorai/research-plugins, which has 298 GitHub stars. The repository holds 405 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on June 19, 2026.

Source: wentorai/research-plugins on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.