Unpaywall MCP Server
Server Configuration
Describes the environment variables required to run the server.
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNPAYWALL_EMAIL | Yes | Your email address (required by Unpaywall for polite usage) |
Instructions
Guidance the server publishes about itself, which clients place ahead of the tool catalog so the model reads it before choosing anything.
This server publishes no instructions, or was last inspected before Glama recorded them.
Capabilities
Server capabilities have not been inspected yet.
Tools
Functions exposed to the LLM to take actions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| unpaywall_get_by_doiA | Fetch Unpaywall metadata for a DOI (accepts DOI, DOI URL, or 'doi:' prefix). Requires an email address via env UNPAYWALL_EMAIL or the optional 'email' argument. |
| unpaywall_search_titlesA | Search Unpaywall for article titles matching a query. Supports optional is_oa filter and pagination (50 results per page). |
| unpaywall_get_fulltext_linksA | Given a DOI, return best open-access links (best PDF URL and open URL) plus Unpaywall locations metadata. |
| unpaywall_fetch_pdf_textA | Download and extract text from best OA PDF for a DOI, or from a provided PDF URL. |
Prompts
Interactive templates invoked by user choice
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
No prompts | |
Resources
Contextual data attached and managed by the client
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
No resources | |
TDQS
Scored across 4 tools
Each tool has a clearly distinct purpose: fetching PDF text, retrieving metadata, getting fulltext links, and searching titles. There is no overlap in functionality, making it easy for an agent to select the right tool for a specific task.
All tools follow a consistent 'unpaywall_verb_noun' pattern, such as unpaywall_fetch_pdf_text and unpaywall_search_titles. This uniformity enhances readability and predictability across the toolset.
With 4 tools, the server is well-scoped for handling Unpaywall-related operations, covering key actions like metadata retrieval, text extraction, link fetching, and title search without being overly sparse or bloated.
The toolset covers essential CRUD-like operations for accessing open-access content, including fetching, searching, and retrieving links. A minor gap might be the lack of update or delete tools, but this is reasonable given the server's read-only nature for external data.