# openalex [Health: Active]

**Category:** 🔬 Research  
**Repository:** https://github.com/pipeworx-io/mcp-openalex  
**GitHub Stars:** 0  
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**Directory Page:** https://allmcps.com/mcp/openalex

## Description
OpenAlex MCP — wraps the OpenAlex API (scholarly works, free, no auth)

## Tools
Capabilities this server exposes over MCP:

- **search_works** — Search scholarly/academic research across ALL fields — medicine, biology, neuroscience, genetics, chemistry, physics, materials science, computer science, economics, and beyond. Find recent studies, papers, and findings on any topic, gene, disease, drug, material, method, or theory by title, author, or keyword — e.g. "latest research on Kv7 potassium channels in epilepsy", "recent studies on semaglutide", "what has been published on X". Returns title, authors, journal, publication year, citation count, and abstract.
- **search_authors** — Find researchers by name or institution affiliation. Returns author name, ORCID, institution, publication count, and total citations.
- **search_institutions** — Find academic institutions by name or location (e.g., country code 'US', 'GB'). Returns institution name, country, type, publication count, and research areas.
- **get_concept** — Look up research fields or topics by name. Returns concept description, publication count, related concepts, and parent concepts in the academic hierarchy.
- **get_scholarly_work** — Fetch a single scholarly work from OpenAlex by its OpenAlex ID (e.g. "W2741809807") or DOI (e.g. "10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2"). Returns the full record + reconstructed abstract and the works it CITES (referenced_works) — for backward citation-graph navigation. Use after search_works, or whenever you have a DOI/ID. (Named get_scholarly_work to avoid colliding with Crossref get_work.)

## Claude Desktop Quick Installation
Install path detected from listing signals. Uses `npx` (confidence: high):

```json
"mcpServers": {
  "openalex": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y","@pipeworx/mcp-openalex"]
  }
}
```

## Documentation

## What openalex MCP server does

The openalex MCP server exposes OpenAlex’s structured scholarly graph to MCP-compatible clients. OpenAlex contains more than 240 million scholarly works and links them to authors, institutions, venues, concepts, funders, and citations. The data source is free and public, so no OpenAlex account or API key is required.

Use it to find a paper by title, DOI, or OpenAlex identifier and retrieve its structured record. It also supports searches involving authors and institutions, concept-based discovery, and citation questions such as which works cite a paper or which sources it references. A citable work URI follows the pattern `pipeworx://openalex/work/{work_id}`.

## How it works

The hosted connection is available at `https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openalex/mcp`. A full Pipeworx gateway connection is also available at `https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp`; both reach the same underlying data sources, but the scoped endpoint lists OpenAlex tools directly. Hosted pack endpoints also expose shared Pipeworx meta-tools, including `ask_pipeworx`, `discover_tools`, `search_within`, and `remember`/`recall`.

The local package communicates over MCP using stdin and stdout. Run it with `npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-openalex` to expose only the OpenAlex pack’s tools, without the gateway’s shared meta-tools. Without an MCP client, the hosted gateway also provides HTTP tool access, including the documented `openalex_search_works` endpoint.

## Setup and configuration

For a hosted setup, add the endpoint to an MCP client:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openalex": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openalex/mcp"
    }
  }
}
```

For local stdio use:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openalex": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-openalex"]
    }
  }
}
```

OpenAlex does not require authentication. The gateway automatically sends a polite-pool email and User-Agent on requests. No environment variables are documented as required.

## Tools and capabilities

The openalex MCP server is suited to:

- Searching and retrieving scholarly works
- Looking up authors and institutions
- Browsing concepts and subject classifications
- Following cited and citing works
- Filtering research by publication context or open-access status
- Asking the gateway to route natural-language questions with `ask_pipeworx`

OpenAlex entity identifiers use stable prefixes: `W` for works, `A` for authors, `I` for institutions, `V` for venues, and `C` for concepts. Cross-entity queries can connect a paper to its authors, affiliations, publication venue, and concepts.

## Limitations and notes

Author disambiguation is imperfect, particularly for common names or researchers whose records span separate identifiers. Cross-check with ORCID when available. Concepts are arranged in a six-level hierarchy; broad top-level concepts may be less useful than more specific lower-level entries.

Citation counts come from OpenAlex’s own indexed corpus and may differ from Google Scholar or Web of Science. Newly published works can take weeks to appear, while citations to recent works generally take longer. OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar are separate datasets, so their coverage and metadata can diverge. Open-access labels such as gold, green, hybrid, bronze, and closed describe the availability status tracked by OpenAlex, not a guarantee that every version is freely accessible.

_Full upstream README: https://allmcps.com/mcp/openalex/readme_