Scholar Search MCP

An MCP server for academic literature workflows in Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients.

It combines Semantic Scholar + arXiv into one unified toolset, with fast parallel search, normalized outputs, source-aware deduplication, and practical research utilities (citations, references, author graph, recommendations, and arXiv source download).

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Table of Contents

• Why this project
• Demo videos
• Install
• Quick setup (Claude Desktop / Cursor)
• Environment variables
• Tool list
• Testing with MCP Inspector
• Contributing
• License

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Why this project

Most paper tools force you to choose one source or one API style. scholar-search-mcp provides one MCP layer for literature search and graph retrieval:

• One MCP server, multiple scholarly sources
• Free-first defaults (arXiv works without keys)
• LLM-friendly outputs for downstream reasoning and agent workflows
• Practical research actions, not only search
• Unified search: search_papers runs Semantic Scholar + arXiv in parallel and deduplicates by normalized title.
• Research graph tools: details, citations, references, author profile/papers, and recommendations.
• Batch + source workflows: fetch up to 500 papers, and download/extract arXiv LaTeX sources.
• Operational controls: built-in caching plus env-based source toggles (enable/disable channels).
• Source strategy: built-in Semantic Scholar + arXiv, free-first by default (arXiv key-free), optional API key for higher Semantic Scholar limits.

Demo videos

Agent writes a survey paper with Scholar Search MCP.

<a href="https://youtu.be/C81rVeznoRY"><img src="./static/scholar_search_demo.jpg" alt="Agent uses Scholar Search MCP to write a survey paper" width="640" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;"></a>

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Install

pip install scholar-search-mcp

Requires Python 3.10+.

Quick setup (Claude Desktop / Cursor)

Use the same server command in both clients:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scholar-search": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "scholar_search_mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR": "true",
        "SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_ARXIV": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY is optional. Add it only if you want higher Semantic Scholar rate limits:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scholar-search": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "scholar_search_mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR": "true",
        "SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_ARXIV": "true",
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Difference:

• Claude Desktop: edit local config file directly.
• Cursor: add an MCP server in Cursor settings UI (or corresponding settings JSON).

Claude Desktop config file locations:

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

Environment variables

Variable	Description
SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY	Optional. Increases Semantic Scholar rate limits.
SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR	true/false, default true.
SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_ARXIV	true/false, default true.
SCHOLAR_SEARCH_CACHE_DIR	Optional cache directory path.
SCHOLAR_SEARCH_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS	Cache TTL in seconds, default 86400.
SCHOLAR_ARXIV_SOURCE_DIR	Default parent directory for extracted arXiv sources.

Example (arXiv only):

{
  "SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR": "false",
  "SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_ARXIV": "true"
}

Tool list

Tool	Purpose
search_papers	Search papers with optional limit, fields, year, venue.
get_paper_details	Get one paper by DOI, arXiv ID, S2 ID, or URL.
get_paper_citations	Get papers that cite a given paper.
get_paper_references	Get references of a given paper.
get_author_info	Get an author profile by ID.
get_author_papers	Get papers by a given author.
get_paper_recommendations	Get similar paper recommendations.
batch_get_papers	Batch fetch paper details (up to 500 IDs).
download_arxiv_source	Download and extract arXiv source bundle (tar.gz).

Testing with MCP Inspector

npm install -g @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
mcp-inspector python -m scholar_search_mcp

Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome: fork repo, create branch, add validation/tests, and open a PR with clear before/after behavior.

License

MIT

References

• Semantic Scholar API Docs
• arXiv API User Manual