mcp-simple-arxiv

GitHub
  • Research & Data
Python
MIT
6
  • Apple
A
security – no known vulnerabilities (report Issue)
A
license - permissive license (MIT)
A
quality - confirmed to work

An MCP server that provides access to arXiv papers through their API.

  1. Tools
  2. Prompts
  3. Resources
  4. Server Configuration
  5. README.md

Prompts

Interactive templates invoked by user choice

NameDescription

No prompts

Resources

Contextual data attached and managed by the client

NameDescription

No resources

Tools

Functions exposed to the LLM to take actions

NameDescription
search_papersSearch for papers on arXiv by title and abstract content. You can use advanced search syntax: - Search in title: ti:"search terms" - Search in abstract: abs:"search terms" - Search by author: au:"author name" - Combine terms with: AND, OR, ANDNOT - Filter by category: cat:cs.AI (use list_categories tool to see available categories) Examples: - "machine learning" (searches all fields) - ti:"neural networks" AND cat:cs.AI (title with category) - au:bengio AND ti:"deep learning" (author and title)
get_paper_dataGet detailed information about a specific paper including abstract and available formats
list_categoriesList all available arXiv categories and how to use them in search
update_categoriesUpdate the stored category taxonomy by fetching the latest version from arxiv.org

Server Configuration

Describes the environment variables required to run the server.

NameRequiredDescriptionDefault

No arguments

Need Help?View Source CodeReport Issue
README.md

mcp-simple-arxiv

An MCP server that provides access to arXiv papers through their API.

<a href="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/p38q3nagwb"><img width="380" height="200" src="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/p38q3nagwb/badge" alt="mcp-simple-arxiv MCP server" /></a>

Features

This server allows LLM clients (like Claude Desktop) to:

  • Search for scientific papers on arXiv by title and abstract content
  • Get paper metadata and abstracts
  • Access links to available paper formats (PDF/HTML)

The server implements proper rate limiting according to arXiv's API guidelines (max 1 request every 3 seconds).

Installation

pip install mcp-simple-arxiv

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add this configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json:

(Mac OS)

{ "mcpServers": { "simple-arxiv": { "command": "python", "args": ["-m", "mcp_simple_arxiv"] } } }

(Windows version):

{ "mcpServers": { "simple-arxiv": { "command": "C:\\Users\\YOUR_USERNAME\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python311\\python.exe", "args": [ "-m", "mcp_simple_arxiv" ] } } }

After restarting Claude Desktop, the following capabilities will be available:

Searching Papers

You can ask Claude to search for papers using queries like:

Can you search arXiv for recent papers about large language models?

The search will return basic information about matching papers including:

  • Paper title
  • Authors
  • arXiv ID
  • Publication date

Getting Paper Details

Once you have a paper ID, you can ask for more details:

Can you show me the details for paper 2103.08220?

This will return:

  • Full paper title
  • Authors
  • Publication and update dates
  • Journal reference (if available)
  • Paper abstract
  • Links to available formats (PDF/HTML)

Development

To install for development:

git clone https://github.com/andybrandt/mcp-simple-arxiv cd mcp-simple-arxiv pip install -e .

arXiv API Guidelines

This server follows arXiv API usage guidelines:

  • Rate limiting to max 1 request per 3 seconds
  • Single connection at a time
  • Proper error handling and retry logic

License

MIT

GitHub Badge

Glama performs regular codebase and documentation scans to:

  • Confirm that the MCP server is working as expected.
  • Confirm that there are no obvious security issues with dependencies of the server.
  • Extract server characteristics such as tools, resources, prompts, and required parameters.

Our directory badge helps users to quickly asses that the MCP server is safe, server capabilities, and instructions for installing the server.

Copy the following code to your README.md file:

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