📚 Paper Distill MCP Server

Academic paper search, intelligent curation, and multi-platform delivery — built on the Model Context Protocol.

Compatible with all MCP clients: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Trae, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw, VS Code, Zed, and more.

⚠️ Early development stage. Many features are still being validated and may contain bugs or instabilities. Feedback and bug reports are warmly welcome!

✨ Features

• 🔍 11-source parallel search — OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, PubMed, arXiv, Papers with Code, CrossRef, Europe PMC, bioRxiv, DBLP, CORE, Unpaywall
• 🤖 Adaptive AI delivery — the agent tracks your evolving research interests and automatically refines search keywords and recommendations over time
• 📊 4-dimensional weighted ranking — relevance × recency × impact × novelty, fully customizable weights
• 👥 Dual-AI blind review — two AI reviewers independently shortlist papers; a chief reviewer synthesizes a final push/overflow/discard decision (optional)
• 🧹 Scraper delegation — offload abstract extraction to a low-cost agent or API to cut token spend significantly
• 🌐 Personal paper library site — Astro + Vercel auto-deploy; site updates within 30 seconds of each push
• 📬 Multi-platform delivery — Telegram / Discord / Feishu / WeCom
• 📦 Zotero integration — save papers to Zotero with one command
• 📝 Obsidian integration — auto-generate paper note cards with Zotero backlinks; supports summary and template modes

🚀 Quick Install

uvx paper-distill-mcp

That's it. Your AI client will discover all tools automatically. No API keys required for basic paper search.

No uv? → curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh or brew install uv

pip install paper-distill-mcp

brew tap Eclipse-Cj/tap
brew install paper-distill-mcp

docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/eclipse-cj/paper-distill-mcp

git clone https://github.com/Eclipse-Cj/paper-distill-mcp.git
cd paper-distill-mcp
python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install --upgrade pip && .venv/bin/pip install -e .

🔗 Connecting to AI Clients

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paper-distill": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["paper-distill-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add paper-distill -- uvx paper-distill-mcp

Or add to .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paper-distill": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["paper-distill-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Codex CLI (OpenAI)

Add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.paper-distill]
command = "uvx"
args = ["paper-distill-mcp"]

Gemini CLI (Google)

Add to ~/.gemini/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paper-distill": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["paper-distill-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

OpenClaw

mcporter config add paper-distill --command uvx --scope home -- paper-distill-mcp
mcporter list  # verify

To remove: mcporter config remove paper-distill

git clone https://github.com/Eclipse-Cj/paper-distill-mcp.git ~/.openclaw/tools/paper-distill-mcp
cd ~/.openclaw/tools/paper-distill-mcp
uv venv .venv && uv pip install .
mcporter config add paper-distill \
  --command ~/.openclaw/tools/paper-distill-mcp/.venv/bin/python3 \
  --scope home \
  -- -m mcp_server.server
mcporter list

Other clients (Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Trae)

Same JSON config, different config file paths:

HTTP transport (remote / hosted)

paper-distill-mcp --transport http --port 8765

🎯 Getting Started

After connecting your client, tell the agent "initialize paper-distill". It will call setup() and walk you through:

1. Research topics — describe your interests in plain language; the AI extracts keywords
2. Delivery platform — set up Telegram / Discord / Feishu / WeCom (optional)
3. Paper library site — build a personal paper library that updates automatically (optional)
4. Scraper delegate — point to a low-cost agent or API for abstract extraction (recommended)
5. Preferences — paper count, ranking weights, review mode, etc.
6. First search — pool_refresh() populates the paper pool

All settings can be updated at any time through conversation:

• "Push 8 papers next time"
• "Add a new topic: RAG retrieval"
• "Enable dual-AI blind review"
• "Increase recency weight"

⚙️ Configuration Reference

All parameters are set via configure() or add_topic() — no manual file editing needed.

Research Topics (add_topic / manage_topics)

Paper Count & Review (configure)

💡 Dual blind review: two independent AI reviewers each shortlist papers; a chief reviewer makes the final push/overflow/discard call. Papers that don't make the cut are held for the next cycle rather than discarded. Enable with configure(review_mode="dual").

Ranking Weights (configure)

Controls paper scoring. The four weights should sum to approximately 1.0.

Example: "Prioritize recent papers" → configure(w_recency=0.35, w_relevance=0.40)

Scraper / Abstract Extraction Delegate (configure)

Abstract extraction is the most token-intensive step. It runs on the main agent by default, but can be delegated to a cheaper model to cut costs significantly.

🔧 Strongly recommended: for 30+ papers, frontier model costs add up fast. A $0.14/M-token model handles extraction just as well. Set this with configure(summarizer="scraper").

Paper Pool & Scan Batches (configure)

pool_refresh() searches all 11 APIs and fills the pool. The pool is then split into batches for daily AI review — avoiding a single 60+ paper dump.

• scan_batches=2 (default): review first half on day 1, second half on day 2, finalize on day 3
• scan_batches=3: review one-third per day, finalize on day 4

When all batches are reviewed, the pool is exhausted and the next run triggers a fresh API search automatically.

Delivery Platforms (Environment Variables)

⚠️ Important: set environment variables in the MCP client config env field, not as system environment variables. Otherwise send_push() cannot access the webhook URL and the AI may generate scripts that call webhooks directly, causing encoding issues.

Config example (WeCom + Claude Desktop):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paper-distill": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["paper-distill-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "WECOM_WEBHOOK_URL": "https://qyapi.weixin.qq.com/cgi-bin/webhook/send?key=YOUR_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart the MCP client after editing the config.

Push message format (fixed):