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Find Research Papers

Search and inspect scholarly papers across five academic indexes through MCP tools.

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Install Find Research Papers

Pick your client, then add it in one click or paste the config.

STDIOPython
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "find-research-papers": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "find-research-papers-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Settings → Developer → Edit Config, merge this into mcpServers, then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop.

Automated check passed— started and listed 7 tools correctly (9d ago).

Overview

Find Research Papers MCP server gives AI agents a unified interface for searching scholarly literature across arXiv, PubMed, OpenAlex, CrossRef, and Semantic Scholar. It provides tools for paper metadata, abstracts, open-access PDF links, references, citations, source health, verification, and research skills. Run it locally with uvx or npx and configure it in supported MCP clients. Reach for it when an agent needs literature discovery or citation-aware research workflows.

Use cases

  • Search multiple scholarly indexes for papers on a research topic
  • Retrieve metadata and abstracts from a DOI or paper ID
  • Trace references and citing papers for a publication
  • Check paper accessibility and retraction information
  • Load research-methodology skills for an agent workflow

Key features

  • Unified search across five scholarly indexes
  • Paper metadata, abstract, and PDF-link retrieval
  • Reference and citation graph lookup
  • Paper accessibility and retraction checks
  • Live source status and latency reporting
  • Dynamic research-skill loading

Tools7

What Find Research Papers lets your agent do. Expand a tool for its parameters.

Verified live~614 tokens of context

Security & health

What it can reach and how reliably it runs — from our own checks, not the maintainer’s claims.

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4/4 checks healthy over the last 45d

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Scanned 9d ago via OSV.dev · find-research-papers-mcp (PyPI)

Adoption & maintenance

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GitHub stars6Stargazers on the source repository.
Last commit20d agoMost recent push to the default branch.
Availability100%Our rolling endpoint + install checks that succeeded.
Install checkPassedOur sandbox started it and listed its tools.
Tools exposed7Callable tools this server registers over MCP.
Directory activity2 viewsConfig copies, upvotes, and views on AllMCPs.

How Find Research Papers works

What Find Research Papers MCP server does

Find Research Papers MCP server exposes research-oriented tools through the Model Context Protocol. It combines search across arXiv, PubMed, OpenAlex, CrossRef, and Semantic Scholar instead of requiring an agent to query each index separately.

The primary search operation accepts a text query, a list of sources, and a result limit. Results can be returned as JSON or Markdown. A separate paper lookup accepts either a DOI or another paper identifier and returns metadata such as the abstract, authors, publication date, and an open-access PDF link when available.

How it works

The Find Research Papers MCP server runs as a local command-line process and communicates with an MCP client. You can launch it with the Python-oriented uvx find-research-papers-mcp command or the Node-based npx -y find-research-papers-mcp command.

Search can target the available indexes through the sources parameter. Other tools use DOI or paper IDs to retrieve related information. CrossRef supplies bibliography data for references, while OpenAlex supplies citing papers and citation-graph data. The server also includes source-status reporting and research-skill loading through GitHub.

Setup and configuration

The Find Research Papers MCP server can be installed through the project’s universal installer or started directly with uvx or npx. The documented setup examples include Claude Desktop, Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code configurations for Cline, Roo Code, and Continue, plus Zed and Windsurf through the universal installer.

For command-based configurations, define an MCP server named papers with uvx and find-research-papers-mcp as the command and argument. The VS Code example uses npx with -y and the package name. The installer is presented as an option that auto-configures several clients.

Anonymous diagnostic telemetry is enabled by default. Set DO_NOT_TRACK=1 or MCP_TELEMETRY_OPT_OUT=1 to opt out.

Tools and capabilities

  • search_papers: Search the five scholarly indexes with a query, source list, and limit.
  • get_paper: Retrieve metadata, abstracts, authors, dates, and an open-access PDF link using a DOI or ID.
  • get_references: Retrieve a paper’s bibliography through CrossRef.
  • get_citations: Retrieve citing papers and citation-graph information through OpenAlex.
  • verify_paper: Check landing-page accessibility and cross-check retraction databases using a DOI.
  • list_sources: Report live status and latency for the five indexes.
  • skill_read: Load a named research-methodology skill from GitHub.
  • skills_list: List available scientific research skills.

Limitations and notes

Search and related-paper results depend on the underlying scholarly indexes and their availability. verify_paper checks accessibility and retraction information; it should not be treated as a complete assessment of research quality. The documented telemetry controls affect diagnostic collection, not access to the paper indexes.

Read the full README View source on GitHub

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Frequently Asked Questions about Find Research Papers

Find Research Papers is an MCP server that connects AI agents to arXiv, PubMed, OpenAlex, CrossRef, and Semantic Scholar. Its main tools search papers, retrieve metadata, references, and citations, verify paper accessibility and retractions, report source status, and load research-methodology skills.

Run `uvx find-research-papers-mcp` or `npx -y find-research-papers-mcp` to start it directly. The project also provides a universal installer that can configure several documented MCP clients automatically.

Yes, Find Research Papers works with Cursor through an `mcp.json` entry that runs `uvx find-research-papers-mcp`.

No required API key is documented for running Find Research Papers.

Set `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` or `MCP_TELEMETRY_OPT_OUT=1` before running the server.

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