Skip to main content
Glama
retospect

acatome-quest-mcp

by retospect
OverviewSchemaRelated ServersScoreDiscussions
Python
Local

acatome-quest-mcp

Paper-request MCP for scientific papers. The missing piece between precis-mcp (navigates what's already in your library) and acatome-extract (ingests PDFs that land in an inbox).

An LLM says "I want this paper" (DOI, arXiv id, title, or free-form citation). Quest:

  1. Checks the store first — no duplicate work if we already have it.

  2. Resolves the metadata via Crossref + Semantic Scholar + arXiv.

  3. Flags misconceptions — broken DOI, DOI↔title mismatch, duplicate of an existing slug, fabrication suspect.

  4. Fetches the PDF from legitimate open-access sources only and drops it into the existing watch inbox, where acatome-extract takes over.

  5. Returns a request id in milliseconds. Slow extraction happens out of band; the MCP call never blocks.

Open access only — by policy

Quest fetches from arXiv, Unpaywall, OpenAlex, Europe PMC, and Semantic Scholar's open-access index only. It does not, will not, and cannot be configured to use Sci-Hub, LibGen, institutional proxies without explicit opt- in, or any other paywall-circumvention mechanism. Failed retrievals yield a needs_user status with the publisher URL, for you to retrieve manually.

Related MCP server: paper-fetch-mcp

Install

pip install acatome-quest-mcp
# or with uv
uv add acatome-quest-mcp

For dedup against a local acatome-store:

pip install 'acatome-quest-mcp[store]'

Four tools

Tool

What it does

submit(ref, *, dry_run=False, source=None, priority=0, created_by=None)

Resolve + optionally queue. Idempotent.

status(id=None, *, filter=None)

Read one or many requests.

update(id, mode, **kwargs)

Mutate. Modes: confirm, repoint, flag, priority, cancel.

submit_file(url?, content_base64?, filename?, request_id?, ref?, created_by?)

Attach a user-supplied PDF (e.g. Discord attachment) to an existing request or create a new one, flip to ingesting.

submit

submit(ref={"doi": "10.1021/jacs.2c01234"})
submit(ref={"title": "Anion exchange membranes for NOx reduction",
            "authors": ["Feng, Z."], "year": 2024})
submit(ref={"raw": "Feng et al. 2024, Adv. Funct. Mater. 34, 2300512"})
submit(ref={"doi": "10.1234/x"}, dry_run=True)      # resolve only, no queue
submit(ref={"doi": "10.1234/x"},
       source={"document": "ch02.tex", "line": 147})

Response:

{
  "id": "9f3b…",
  "status": "found_in_store",
  "resolved": {"doi": "10.1021/jacs.2c01234",
               "title": "…", "authors": ["…"], "year": 2024,
               "ref": "smith2022jacs"},
  "candidates": [],
  "misconceptions": []
}

status

status(id="9f3b…")
status(filter={"status": "needs_user"})
status(filter={"created_by": "asa", "has_misconception": True})
status(filter={"source_document": "ch02.tex"})

update

update(id, mode="confirm", choice=0)            # pick candidates[0]
update(id, mode="repoint", doi="10.1023/A:…")   # user-corrected DOI
update(id, mode="flag", code="retracted",
       evidence="Retraction Watch 2024-08-12")
update(id, mode="priority", priority=5)
update(id, mode="cancel")

submit_file

# User drops a PDF for an already-tracked request (reopens failed / needs_user):
submit_file(url="https://cdn.discordapp.com/…/paper.pdf",
            request_id="7f3a…",
            filename="feng2024.pdf")

# User supplies both a PDF and a DOI in one step (creates the request):
submit_file(url="https://cdn.discordapp.com/…/paper.pdf",
            ref={"doi": "10.1021/jacs.2c01234"},
            created_by="asa")

# Bytes already in memory (no URL to fetch):
submit_file(content_base64="JVBERi0xLjQKJf…",
            request_id="7f3a…")

PDF magic bytes are validated; HTML error pages are rejected. The file is written to the extractor's inbox (~/.acatome/inbox/ by default) and the request flips to ingesting. If the paper's DOI is already in the store, the tool short-circuits to found_in_store without writing anything.

CLI

The acatome-quest binary exposes the same surface as the MCP plus a couple of shell-friendly helpers:

acatome-quest submit 10.1021/jacs.2c01234
acatome-quest status <id>
acatome-quest status --filter status=needs_user
acatome-quest status --filter status=needs_user --count     # just prints "3"
acatome-quest update <id> repoint --doi 10.1023/A:…
acatome-quest submit-file --path ./feng2024.pdf --request-id 7f3a…
acatome-quest submit-file --url https://.../paper.pdf --doi 10.1021/jacs.2c01234
acatome-quest report                                         # markdown worklist
acatome-quest report --document ch04.tex --format markdown   # scoped
acatome-quest runner [--once]
acatome-quest reconcile

report renders a paste-ready markdown document for every request in needs_user, failed, or extract_failed — each entry with citation, DOI/arXiv link, failure reason, misconception evidence, and a concrete suggested action (repoint DOI, drop PDF into ~/.acatome/inbox/, request via interlibrary loan, …). Hand it to a librarian or paste into an ILL form.

Statuses

Status

Meaning

queued

Accepted, not yet fetched

resolving

Metadata lookup in progress (transient)

found_in_store

Dedup hit — slug in resolved.ref

needs_user

Disambiguation or manual fetch required

fetching

Runner has claimed and is downloading

ingesting

PDF in inbox, waiting for acatome-extract watch

ingested

Extraction done, slug in resolved.ref

extract_failed

PDF delivered but extraction failed

failed

All sources exhausted

cancelled

update(mode=cancel) was called

Misconception codes

Code

Severity

Trigger

doi_invalid

major

Crossref 404 or syntactically malformed

doi_truncated

major

404, but doi + digit resolves

doi_title_mismatch

critical

DOI resolves but title fuzz < 60 vs request

title_not_found

critical

No S2/Crossref hit (fabrication suspect)

duplicate_of

minor

Already in store under another slug

retracted

critical

S2 / Retraction Watch flag

preprint_of

info

arXiv preprint of a later journal paper

pdf_mismatch

critical

User-dropped PDF resolved to a different paper than the request it was attached to

Architecture

 agent ──submit()──► acatome-quest-mcp (FastMCP, stdio)
                            │
                            ▼
              cluster.papers.requests (Postgres)
                            │
                            ▼
           acatome-quest-runner (launchd, poll 30 s)
                  │
          fetch: arxiv → unpaywall → …
                  │
                  ▼
          ~/.acatome/inbox/<slug>__<hash>.pdf
                  │
                  ▼
          acatome-extract watch  →  acatome-store
                  ▲
                  └── runner polls by DOI, flips to `ingested`

Configuration

Env var

Default

Description

DATABASE_URL

postgresql://localhost/cluster

Postgres DSN

QUEST_SCHEMA

papers

Schema name for the requests table

ACATOME_INBOX

~/.acatome/inbox

Drop directory watched by acatome-extract

UNPAYWALL_EMAIL

(required at runner start)

Polite-pool contact

ACATOME_CROSSREF_MAILTO

(recommended)

Crossref polite pool

SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY

(optional)

Raises S2 rate limit

QUEST_POLL_INTERVAL

30

Runner tick seconds

QUEST_MAX_CONCURRENT

4

Max parallel fetches

QUEST_INGEST_TIMEOUT

900

Seconds to wait for ingest after PDF drop

QUEST_MAX_OPEN_PER_AGENT

50

Per-created_by cap

Development

uv sync
uv run pytest
uv run ruff check .
uv run mypy src tests

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

Install Server
A
license - permissive license
A
quality
B
maintenance

How are these scores calculated?

Maintenance

–Maintainers
–Response time
–Release cycle
–Releases (12mo)
Commit activity

Resources

Unclaimed servers have limited discoverability.

Looking for Admin?

If you are the server author, to access and configure the admin panel.

Tools

Latest Blog Posts

MCP directory API

We provide all the information about MCP servers via our MCP API.

curl -X GET 'https://glama.ai/api/mcp/v1/servers/retospect/acatome-quest-mcp'

If you have feedback or need assistance with the MCP directory API, please join our Discord server