Semantic Scholar MCP Server

Note: A lightweight CLI alternative is available at semantic-scholar-cli. It is designed for LLM tool-use workflows with strict typed inputs, stable JSON envelopes, and small default payloads — usable without an MCP server.

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to Semantic Scholar's academic paper database through their API.

Features

• Paper Search: Search for academic papers with filters for year, fields of study, and open access

• Paper Details: Get comprehensive information about specific papers including abstracts, authors, and citation counts

• Author Information: Retrieve detailed author data including affiliations, h-index, and citation metrics

• Citation Export: Generate citations in multiple formats (BibTeX, APA, MLA, Chicago)

Related MCP server: semanticscholar-mcp

Usage

Get API Key

While the Semantic Scholar API can be used without authentication, having an API key provides higher rate limits. To get an API key:

1. Visit Semantic Scholar API

2. Request an API key

Add to Claude Code configuration

Run the following command to add the Semantic Scholar MCP server to your project-scope Claude Code configuration:

claude mcp add semantic-scholar-mcp -s project -e SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY="your-api-key-here" -- uv run --with "git+https://github.com/FujishigeTemma/semantic-scholar-mcp" semantic-scholar-mcp serve

Or manually add it to your .mcp.json configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semantic-scholar-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--with",
        "git+https://github.com/FujishigeTemma/semantic-scholar-mcp",
        "semantic-scholar-mcp",
        "serve"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

1. search_paper - Search for papers

   • Required: query (search terms)

   • Optional: fields, limit, offset, year, fieldsOfStudy, openAccessPdf

2. get_paper - Get detailed paper information

   • Required: paper_id (supports multiple ID types: DOI, ArXiv ID, S2 Paper ID, etc.)

   • Optional: fields (customize returned data, see: Field Customization)

3. get_authors - Get author information for a paper

   • Required: paper_id

   • Optional: fields, limit, offset

4. get_citation - Generate formatted citations

   • Required: paper_id

   • Optional: format (bibtex, apa, mla, chicago)

CLI Examples

Search for papers:

semantic-scholar-mcp tools search_paper "machine learning" --limit 5 --year "2020-2023"

Get paper details:

semantic-scholar-mcp tools get_paper "10.1038/nature12373"

Get authors for a paper:

semantic-scholar-mcp tools get_authors "649def34f8be52c8b66281af98ae884c09aef38b"

Generate BibTeX citation:

semantic-scholar-mcp tools get_citation "649def34f8be52c8b66281af98ae884c09aef38b" --format bibtex

Field Customization

All tools support a fields parameter to customize the returned data. This allows you to request only the information you need, reducing response size and improving performance.

Paper Fields (for search_paper and get_paper)

Basic fields:

• paperId - Unique paper identifier

• title - Paper title

• abstract - Paper abstract

• year - Publication year

• publicationDate - Full publication date

Author information:

• authors - List of authors (returns authorId and name by default)

• authors.authorId - Author's unique identifier

• authors.name - Author's name

• authors.affiliations - Author's institutional affiliations

• authors.citationCount - Author's total citation count

• authors.hIndex - Author's h-index

Citation and reference data:

• citationCount - Number of times this paper has been cited

• referenceCount - Number of references in this paper

• citations - List of papers that cite this paper

• references - List of papers referenced by this paper

Publication details:

• journal - Journal information (name, volume, pages, etc.)

• venue - Publication venue

• publicationTypes - Types of publication (e.g., JournalArticle, Conference)

• fieldsOfStudy - Academic fields (e.g., Computer Science, Medicine)

• s2FieldsOfStudy - Semantic Scholar's field classifications

Additional metadata:

• doi - Digital Object Identifier

• arxivId - ArXiv identifier

• url - Paper URL

• openAccessPdf - Open access PDF information

• embedding - Paper embedding vectors (for similarity analysis)

Author Fields (for get_authors)

• authorId - Unique author identifier

• name - Author's name

• affiliations - Institutional affiliations

• citationCount - Total citation count

• hIndex - h-index metric

• paperCount - Number of papers published

• url - Author's profile URL

Example Field Usage

Get basic paper information:

semantic-scholar-mcp tools search_paper "machine learning" --fields "paperId,title,year,citationCount"

Get detailed paper with author affiliations:

semantic-scholar-mcp tools get_paper "10.1038/nature12373" --fields "title,abstract,authors.name,authors.affiliations,journal,year"

Get comprehensive author information:

semantic-scholar-mcp tools get_authors "649def34f8be52c8b66281af98ae884c09aef38b" --fields "authorId,name,affiliations,citationCount,hIndex,paperCount"

Development

Setting up the development environment

uv sync

uv run pytest tests/
uv run ruff format .
uv run ruff check . --fix
uv run ty check

Project Structure

semantic-scholar-mcp/
  src/
    semantic_scholar_mcp/
      __init__.py
      server.py      # Main server implementation
      cli.py         # CLI interface
  tests/                 # Test files
  pyproject.toml        # Project configuration
  README.md            # This file

API Rate Limits

• Without API key: 100 requests per 5 minutes

• With API key: 1 request per second (higher limits available on request)

Supported Paper ID Types

The API supports various paper identifier formats:

• Semantic Scholar ID (e.g., "649def34f8be52c8b66281af98ae884c09aef38b")

• DOI (e.g., "10.1038/nature12373")

• ArXiv ID (e.g., "arXiv:2106.15928")

• MAG ID

• ACL ID

• PubMed ID

• Corpus ID

License

MIT License

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Acknowledgments

This project uses the Semantic Scholar API to access academic paper data.