OpenAlex MCP Server

A small Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets Claude (or any MCP client) search scholarly papers and authors via the OpenAlex REST API.

OpenAlex is a free, fully open catalog of ~250M scholarly works — a clean, legal alternative to scraping Google Scholar. No API key required, no rate-limit arms race, no CAPTCHAs. It just returns JSON.

Tools

Tool	Description
search_works	Search papers by free text. Supports year_from / year_to, open_access_only, and sort_by_citations.
get_work	Fetch one work by OpenAlex ID (e.g. W2741809807) or DOI. Includes the reconstructed abstract.
search_authors	Find authors by name — affiliation, works/citation counts, top fields.
get_author_works	List an author's works (most-cited first) by OpenAlex author ID.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• mcp and httpx (see requirements.txt)

Install

git clone https://github.com/abhijain864/openalex-mcp.git
cd openalex-mcp
pip install -r requirements.txt

Optional: polite pool

OpenAlex offers a faster "polite pool" if you identify yourself with an email. Set the OPENALEX_MAILTO environment variable to opt in (recommended but not required):

export OPENALEX_MAILTO="you@example.com"

Connecting to Claude

Claude Code (CLI)

Run this once to register the server at user scope (available in every project):

claude mcp add --scope user openalex \
  --env OPENALEX_MAILTO=you@example.com \
  -- python /absolute/path/to/openalex-mcp/openalex_server.py

On Windows, use the full path to python.exe and the script, e.g. python C:\Users\you\openalex-mcp\openalex_server.py.

Verify it's connected:

claude mcp list

Then just ask Claude things like "find the most-cited open-access papers on diffusion models since 2023." The tools appear as mcp__openalex__search_works, mcp__openalex__get_work, etc.

Or edit the config directly

Add an entry under mcpServers in ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openalex": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/openalex-mcp/openalex_server.py"],
      "env": { "OPENALEX_MAILTO": "you@example.com" }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add the same entry to your claude_desktop_config.json:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openalex": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/openalex-mcp/openalex_server.py"],
      "env": { "OPENALEX_MAILTO": "you@example.com" }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The OpenAlex tools will appear in the tools menu.

Example

You: What are the most-cited papers on graph neural networks?

Claude (calls search_works with sort_by_citations=true) returns titles, authors, venues, citation counts, and open-access PDF links.

How it works

Each tool maps to an OpenAlex REST endpoint (/works, /authors) and trims the response down to the fields worth reading (title, authors, venue, year, citation count, DOI, and open-access PDF URL). get_work additionally reconstructs the abstract from OpenAlex's inverted index.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Acknowledgements

Data from OpenAlex, an open and free catalog of the global research system by OurResearch.