Setup & Installation
openclaw skills install @xuyuan0805/xy-pubmed-pdf-downloader
Or with the ClawHub CLI, for registry-managed skill folders outside a full OpenClaw workspace:
npx clawhub install xy-pubmed-pdf-downloader
What This Skill Does
Downloads open-access PDF papers from PubMed Central and Europe PMC using various identifier formats including PMC IDs, PubMed URLs, and DOIs. Supports both single and batch downloads with automatic fallback between sources.
Handles DOI-to-PMC conversion and automatic Europe PMC fallback, removing the need to manually track down alternate sources when a download fails.
When to use it
- Download a paper by its DOI for offline reading
- Batch download a reading list of PMC IDs overnight
- Save a PubMed article directly from its URL
- Archive open-access papers for a literature review
- Collect PDFs for a research project using a mixed list of identifiers
Example Workflow
Here's how your AI assistant might use this skill in practice.
INPUT
User asks: download PMC12867338 and save it as coronary_prediction.pdf in ./papers
AGENT
- 1Accepts the PMC ID as the identifier
- 2Resolves the PMC ID to a download URL on PubMed Central
- 3Attempts to fetch the PDF from PMC
- 4Falls back to Europe PMC if the primary download fails
- 5Saves the file as coronary_prediction.pdf in the ./papers directory
OUTPUT
coronary_prediction.pdf saved in ./papers