by Silung
An MCP server for academic paper search that integrates with AI assistants (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor), enabling them to search and retrieve academic paper metadata.
# Add to your Claude Code skills
git clone https://github.com/Silung/scholar-search-mcpGuides for using ai agents skills like scholar-search-mcp.
Last scanned: 5/30/2026
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}scholar-search-mcp is an open-source ai agents skill for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, and ChatGPT, built by Silung. An MCP server for academic paper search that integrates with AI assistants (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor), enabling them to search and retrieve academic paper metadata. It has 210 GitHub stars.
Yes. scholar-search-mcp passed SkillsLLM's automated security scan — a dependency vulnerability audit plus prompt-injection heuristics — with no high-severity issues. You can read the full report in the Security Report section on this page.
Clone the repository with "git clone https://github.com/Silung/scholar-search-mcp" and add it to your Claude Code skills directory (see the Installation section above).
scholar-search-mcp is primarily written in Python. It is open-source under Silung on GitHub, so you can review or fork the full source.
Yes. SkillsLLM lists many other AI Agents skills you can browse and compare side by side. Open the AI Agents category from the badge at the top of this page, or use the Related Skills and comparison links further down to weigh scholar-search-mcp against similar tools.
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An MCP server for academic literature workflows in Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients.
It combines Semantic Scholar and 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).
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:
arXiv works without keys)search_papers runs Semantic Scholar + arXiv in parallel and deduplicates by normalized title.arXiv key-free), optional API key for higher Semantic Scholar limits.Agent writes a survey paper with Scholar Search MCP.
pip install scholar-search-mcp
Requires Python 3.10+.
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 config file locations:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json| 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 | 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). |
npm install -g @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
mcp-inspector python -m scholar_search_mcp
Issues and PRs are welcome: fork repo, create branch, add validation/tests, and open a PR with clear before/after behavior.