Semantic Scholar MCP Server
An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph API — 200M+ papers with citation networks, author profiles, and full-text snippet search.
Built with the MCP TypeScript SDK and Zod.
| Tool | Description |
|---|
paper_search | Search papers by keyword with filtering (year, venue, field, open access, citations, type) |
paper_search_bulk | Bulk search with cursor pagination for large result sets (up to 10M) |
paper_match | Find the single best match for a known paper title |
paper_autocomplete | Autocomplete partial paper titles (up to 10 suggestions) |
paper_get | Get full details for a paper by ID (S2 ID, DOI, ArXiv, PMID, etc.) |
paper_batch | Retrieve up to 500 papers in a single request |
paper_citations | Get papers that cite a given paper (forward citations) |
paper_references | Get a paper's reference list (bibliography) |
paper_authors | Get author details for a specific paper |
| Tool | Description |
|---|
author_get | Get full author profile (h-index, affiliations, stats) |
author_batch | Retrieve up to 1000 author profiles in one request |
author_search | Search for authors by name |
author_papers | Get all papers by a specific author |
| Tool | Description |
|---|
recommendations_for_paper | Get ML-powered paper recommendations for a given paper |
recommendations_from_lists | Get recommendations from positive/negative example papers |
| Tool | Description |
|---|
snippet_search | Search within paper bodies for specific text passages |
Setup
1. Get an API key (optional but recommended)
Get a free key at semanticscholar.org/product/api. Without a key, requests are heavily rate-limited.
2. Install and build
cd semanticscholar-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build
3. Add to Claude Desktop
Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"semantic-scholar": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/semanticscholar-mcp-server/dist/index.js"],
"env": {
"SEMANTICSCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
}
}
}
}
Or if using Claude Code CLI:
claude mcp add semantic-scholar \
node \
/path/to/semanticscholar-mcp-server/dist/index.js \
-e SEMANTICSCHOLAR_API_KEY=your-api-key
Features
- Multiple ID formats: Accepts S2 Paper IDs, DOIs, ArXiv IDs, PMIDs, PMCIDs, CorpusIds
- Markdown or JSON output: Every tool supports
response_format: "json" for structured data
- Custom field selection: Override default fields with the
fields parameter
- Built-in rate limiting: Token bucket limiter prevents API throttling
- Batch operations: Retrieve up to 500 papers or 1000 authors in a single call
Usage examples
- "Search Semantic Scholar for papers on transformer architectures from 2023"
- "Get recommendations for papers similar to this one"
- "Find the citation network for DOI 10.1038/nature14539"
- "Search for text snippets mentioning 'chain of thought prompting'"
- "Look up author profile for researcher 1741101"
License
MIT