Paper Search MCP

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• paper_search_mcp/server.py:1281-1290 (handler)

  The 'download_openalex' tool handler in 'paper_search_mcp/server.py'. It calls 'openalex_searcher.download_pdf'.

  async def download_openalex(paper_id: str, save_path: str = "./downloads") -> str:
      """Download PDF for a paper from OpenAlex.
  
      Args:
          paper_id: OpenAlex paper ID.
          save_path: Directory to save the PDF (default: './downloads').
      Returns:
          str: Error message, typically OpenAlex relies on extracted pdf_url instead of direct downloads.
      """
      return await asyncio.to_thread(openalex_searcher.download_pdf, paper_id, save_path)

• paper_search_mcp/academic_platforms/openalex.py:156-163 (handler)

  The 'download_pdf' method in 'OpenAlexSearcher' class. It is currently implemented to raise NotImplementedError, reflecting that OpenAlex does not support direct PDF downloads.

  def download_pdf(self, paper_id: str, save_path: str) -> str:
      """
      OpenAlex does not host PDFs natively, it only links to open access versions.
      """
      raise NotImplementedError(
          "OpenAlex does not provide direct PDF downloads natively. "
          "Please use the extracted 'pdf_url' if available, or DOI for fallback."
      )