
Connects Claude to the Human Phenotype Ontology API for querying clinical phenotype terms and their relationships to genes and diseases. Runs through the Pipeworx gateway, which routes requests to the HPO data source. You can call tools directly or use the ask_pipeworx natural language interface to query without knowing exact parameters. Useful when you're building medical research tools, annotating patient data with standardized phenotype terms, or exploring genotype to phenotype mappings. The Pipeworx gateway also gives you access to 673+ other data sources if you need to correlate HPO data with other biomedical APIs in the same workflow.
Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) MCP — clinical phenotype terms + gene/disease annotations. Keyless.
Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1476+ live data sources.
term(id) — HPO term by HP id (e.g. HP:0001250)search(query, limit?, page?) — text search across HPO termsterm_children(id) — direct children of a termterm_parents(id) — direct parents of a termterm_descendants(id) — full descendant subtree (paginated)gene_diseases(id) — diseases associated with a gene id (NCBIGene)disease_phenotypes(id) — HPO terms annotated to a disease (OMIM/ORPHA/MONDO id)https://ontology.jax.org/api/hp/ (newer HPO REST) with fallback to https://hpo.jax.org/api/hpo/.
Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
{
"mcpServers": {
"hpo-api": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/hpo-api/mcp"
}
}
}
tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/hpo-api/mcp returns the tools in the table
above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx,
discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the
gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a
single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the
pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and
is the authoritative answer for a given day.
This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a
scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via
ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a
second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without
them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth,
connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.
Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:
{
"mcpServers": {
"pipeworx": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
}
}
}
Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1476+ data sources. The
only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx
reaches all of them from either one.
Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:
ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Hpo Api data" })
The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.
MIT