Research Buddy MCP Server
Server Configuration
Describes the environment variables required to run the server.
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY | No | Optional API key for higher rate limits. Get a free key at https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/api |
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": true
} |
| logging | {} |
| prompts | {
"listChanged": false
} |
| resources | {
"subscribe": false,
"listChanged": false
} |
Tools
Functions exposed to the LLM to take actions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| search_papersA | Search for academic papers by query with advanced filters.
|
| bulk_search_papersA | Comprehensive paper search with boolean queries, sorting, and pagination through up to 10 million results. Use for systematic literature reviews.
|
| search_paper_snippetsA | Search within the full text of papers, not just titles/abstracts. Returns ~500-word text excerpts from papers matching the query, with the section where the match was found (e.g. Introduction, Methods).
|
| match_paper_by_titleA | Find the best-matching paper for a given title string. Useful for resolving plain-text references like 'Attention Is All You Need' to a Semantic Scholar paper ID. Returns the top match with a confidence score.
|
| get_paper_detailsB | Get full metadata for a specific paper.
|
| get_related_papersA | Get AI-driven paper recommendations based on seed papers.
|
| get_citationsA | Retrieve papers that cited the given paper, with citation context. Returns citation context (the sentence where the paper was cited), intent (methodology, background, result comparison), and whether it's influential.
|
| get_referencesB | Retrieve papers that this paper references, with citation context. Returns citation context (how the reference was used), intent (methodology, background, result comparison), and whether it's influential.
|
| search_authorsB | Search for authors by name.
|
| get_author_detailsC | Get author profile and their papers.
|
| get_paper_bibtexB | Get the BibTeX citation for a paper.
|
| get_paper_citationB | Get a formatted citation for a paper in a specific style.
|
| batch_get_papersC | Retrieve details for multiple papers at once.
|
| find_common_citationsA | Find papers that appear in the citation graph of ALL given papers. Reveals the 'intersection' of two or more research threads — papers that bridge multiple topics or are foundational to both.
|
| read_pdf_textA | Download and extract text from an open-access PDF.
|
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 15 tools
Most tools have clearly distinct purposes, but there is some overlap: get_paper_bibtex and get_paper_citation (which supports a bibtex style) both retrieve BibTeX output, and search_papers vs bulk_search_papers both perform paper search although bulk supports boolean/systematic queries. These are mostly differentiated in descriptions, but the duplication can still cause hesitation.
Names mostly follow a snake_case verb_noun pattern (search_papers, get_paper_details, get_citations). Minor deviations include batch_get_papers (verb position) and match_paper_by_title (prepositional phrase), plus get_paper_bibtex vs get_paper_citation being format-specific rather than action-consistent, but the set remains readable.
15 tools is at the high end of the typical 3-15 range but each tool earns its place for a research-paper assistant: search, bulk search, snippets, metadata, citations, references, authors, formatting, and PDF extraction. The scope is broad but coherent and not padded with redundant operations.
The surface covers the full research lifecycle: paper search (basic, bulk, full-text snippets), paper identification and metadata, citation graph traversal (citations, references, common citations), author lookup, related-paper recommendation, BibTeX/formatted citation output, batch retrieval, and open-access PDF text extraction. No obvious dead ends for academic literature exploration and citation management.