openresearch-mcp

Zero-auth multi-source research MCP server. Works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, OpenCode, Open WebUI, or any MCP-compatible agent — no API keys required.

Tools

Related MCP server: free-search-mcp

Quickstart

Docker (recommended)

docker run -p 8000:8000 ghcr.io/yourusername/openresearch-mcp

With optional keys for higher limits:

docker run -p 8000:8000 \
  -e GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_... \
  -e SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_KEY=... \
  ghcr.io/yourusername/openresearch-mcp

Local

pip install openresearch-mcp
openresearch-mcp

Or with uv:

uvx openresearch-mcp

stdio (for Claude Desktop / Cursor)

MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio openresearch-mcp

Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openresearch": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["openresearch-mcp"],
      "env": { "MCP_TRANSPORT": "stdio" }
    }
  }
}

Connect via HTTP

Point your agent at http://localhost:8000/mcp (Streamable HTTP transport, MCP 1.1+).

Known limitations

• Reddit / Zenodo: block unauthenticated requests — not included in v1

• YouTube: rate-limited by YouTube at scale; works for personal use

• Semantic Scholar: 100 req/5min without key; auto-falls back to DDG snippets on 429

Roadmap

• Reddit OAuth (browser-based, no user key management)

• GitHub Device Flow login

• OpenAlex (zero-auth, 250M+ papers)

• NewsAPI support (optional key)

• PubMed / NCBI (optional key)

License

MIT