literature-mcp
Server Configuration
Describes the environment variables required to run the server.
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| TAVILY_API_KEY | No | Required for search_tavily and extract_url. | |
| LITERATURE_MCP_PDF_DIR | No | Where read_paper_pdf saves PDFs downloaded from URLs. | ~/literature-mcp/pdfs |
| SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY | No | Optional; raises Semantic Scholar rate limits above the shared public tier. | |
| LITERATURE_MCP_CONTACT_EMAIL | No | Sent to Crossref's polite pool and used in the User-Agent. A real address gets faster, more reliable service. |
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
Features and capabilities supported by this server
Protocol revision2025-11-25
| Capability | Details |
|---|---|
| tools | {
"listChanged": false
} |
| prompts | {
"listChanged": false
} |
| resources | {
"subscribe": false,
"listChanged": false
} |
| experimental | {} |
Tools
Functions exposed to the LLM to take actions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| search_arxivB | Search arXiv via its public API (export.arxiv.org/api/query). Returns raw per-hit metadata: title, arxiv_id, abs/pdf URLs, published date, year, authors, DOI and abstract. Year filtering is applied locally on the published date. |
| search_crossrefC | Search Crossref via its public REST API (api.crossref.org/works). Returns raw per-hit metadata: title, DOI, authors, journal, year and (stripped) abstract. |
| search_semanticscholarC | Search Semantic Scholar via its public Graph API (paper/search). Returns raw per-hit metadata: title, year, publication date, venue, authors, external ids (DOI/arXiv/PubMed), abstract and open-access PDF URL. |
| search_tavilyA | Web search via Tavily (api.tavily.com/search). Requires TAVILY_API_KEY. Returns title, url, relevance score and a content snippet per hit. Use for preprints/blog-level web statements; treat as lower confidence than paper databases. |
| extract_urlA | Extract clean, readable page content from a URL via Tavily (api.tavily.com/extract). Requires TAVILY_API_KEY. Returns the extracted raw content for each result URL. |
| read_paper_pdfA | Extract the full text of a PDF given a local file path or an http(s) URL. If given a URL, the PDF is downloaded to the server's pdf dir first. Returns
local_path, page_count, char count and the extracted text (truncated to
max_chars, or one page if |
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 6 tools
Each tool targets a distinct data source or extraction type: four search tools for different databases (Crossref, Semantic Scholar, Tavily, arXiv), one for web page extraction, and one for PDF text extraction. No two tools overlap in purpose, and descriptions clearly differentiate their use cases.
All tool names follow a consistent verb_noun pattern: search_[source], extract_url, read_paper_pdf. Snake_case is used throughout with no mixing of conventions, making the set predictable.
Six tools are well-scoped for a literature search and reading server. Each adds a distinct capability (search across four sources, web extraction, PDF reading) without redundancy or bloat.
The surface covers multiple literature search sources, web search, web page extraction, and PDF reading, which fully supports the domain of finding and reading papers. No obvious gaps remain for the stated purpose.