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Semantic Scholar MCP Server

by smaniches
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Python
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🔬 Semantic Scholar MCP Server

PyPI version License: MIT MCP Python 3.10+

The most comprehensive MCP server for academic research. Direct access to 200M+ papers from Semantic Scholar within Claude Desktop.

🚀 Features

Tool

Description

semantic_scholar_search_papers

Advanced paper search with filters (year, field, citations, open access)

semantic_scholar_get_paper

Full paper details with optional citations and references

semantic_scholar_search_authors

Find researchers by name

semantic_scholar_get_author

Author profiles with h-index, publications, affiliations

semantic_scholar_recommendations

AI-powered related paper discovery

semantic_scholar_bulk_papers

Batch retrieval of up to 500 papers

Supported ID Formats:

  • Semantic Scholar ID

  • DOI (DOI:10.1038/...)

  • ArXiv (ARXIV:2106.15928)

  • PubMed (PMID:32908142)

  • ACL (ACL:P19-1285)

  • CorpusId (CorpusId:215416146)

📦 Installation

Option 1: pip (Recommended)

pip install semantic-scholar-mcp

Option 2: From Source

git clone https://github.com/smaniches/semantic-scholar-mcp.git cd semantic-scholar-mcp pip install -e .

🔑 Get Your API Key

  1. Go to Semantic Scholar API

  2. Sign up for a free API key

  3. Note your rate limit (typically 1-100 requests/second depending on tier)

⚙️ Configuration

Claude Desktop Setup

Add to your Claude Desktop config file:

Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{ "mcpServers": { "semantic_scholar": { "command": "python", "args": ["-m", "semantic_scholar_mcp"], "env": { "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here" } } } }

Then restart Claude Desktop.

💡 Usage Examples

Search Papers

Search for "transformer attention mechanism" papers from 2023 with at least 100 citations

Get Paper Details

Get details for DOI:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2 including its top 20 citations

Find Related Papers

Get recommendations based on paper 649def34f8be52c8b66281af98ae884c09aef38b

Author Search

Find author "Yoshua Bengio" and list their recent publications

Bulk Retrieval

Retrieve these papers: DOI:10.1038/nature12373, ARXIV:2106.15928, PMID:32908142

📊 Rate Limits

Tier

Requests/Second

How to Get

No API Key

1 req/sec

Default

Free API Key

1 req/sec

Sign up

Academic Partner

10-100 req/sec

Apply via S2

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐ │ Claude Desktop │────▶│ semantic-scholar-mcp │────▶│ Semantic Scholar│ │ (MCP Client) │◀────│ (This Server) │◀────│ API │ └─────────────────┘ └──────────────────────┘ └─────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ stdio (JSON-RPC) │ Your API Key │ HTTPS │ Local process │ Local machine │ 200M+ papers

Your API key never leaves your machine. The MCP server runs locally.

🛠️ Development

# Clone git clone https://github.com/smaniches/semantic-scholar-mcp.git cd semantic-scholar-mcp # Install dev dependencies pip install -e ".[dev]" # Run tests pytest # Type checking mypy src/

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file.

👤 Author

Santiago Maniches

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please read our Contributing Guidelines.

📬 Support

⭐ Star History

If this tool helps your research, please star the repo!

Install Server
A
security – no known vulnerabilities
F
license - not found
A
quality - confirmed to work

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