Semantic Scholar MCP Server
Server Configuration
Describes the environment variables required to run the server.
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY | No | Your Semantic Scholar API key for accessing the Semantic Scholar API. Sign up 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": false
} |
| prompts | {
"listChanged": false
} |
| resources | {
"subscribe": false,
"listChanged": false
} |
| experimental | {} |
Tools
Functions exposed to the LLM to take actions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| semantic_scholar_search_papersA | Search for academic papers. |
| semantic_scholar_get_paperA | Get paper details. Accepts: S2 ID, DOI:xxx, ARXIV:xxx, PMID:xxx, CorpusId:xxx |
| semantic_scholar_search_authorsA | Search for academic authors by name. |
| semantic_scholar_get_authorB | Get author profile with optional publications list. |
| semantic_scholar_recommendationsA | Get paper recommendations based on a seed paper. |
| semantic_scholar_bulk_papersA | Retrieve multiple papers in a single request (max 500). |
| semantic_scholar_bulk_searchA | Search papers with sorting and cursor-based pagination for large result sets. Unlike regular search, supports sorting (e.g., by citation count) and returns a continuation token for paging through all results. |
| semantic_scholar_export_citationA | Export a citation for a paper in BibTeX format. |
| semantic_scholar_match_paperA | Find the single best paper matching a title string. Returns match score. |
| semantic_scholar_paper_authorsA | Get full author profiles for a paper's authors. |
| semantic_scholar_author_batchA | Retrieve multiple authors in a single request (max 1000). |
| semantic_scholar_multi_recommendA | Get recommendations using multiple positive and negative example papers. |
| semantic_scholar_snippet_searchA | Search within paper full text. Returns text snippets with context. |
| semantic_scholar_statusA | Check server health, API connectivity, and key status. |
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 14 tools
Every tool targets a distinct operation or resource: search vs. match vs. snippet search vs. bulk search; single get vs. bulk; authors vs. papers vs. recommendations vs. citation export. The descriptions explicitly cross-reference related tools (e.g., pointing to bulk_search for large sets, multi_recommend for several examples) so there is no ambiguity about when to use one over another.
All names share the consistent semantic_scholar_ prefix and mostly follow verb_noun (search_papers, get_paper, export_citation). A few names drop the verb (status, recommendations, paper_authors, author_batch), creating minor deviations, but these are still easily readable and mnemonic.
With 14 tools, the set covers the core Semantic Scholar API surface without bloat. Each tool adds a distinct capability or batching alternative, and the range falls within the ideal 3–15 band.
The tools cover all major operations users would need from Semantic Scholar: paper search (keyword, bulk/sorted, full-text, title-match), paper retrieval (single and batch), author search and profiles, recommendations (single/multi), citation export, and status. No critical operation is missing for a read-only academic paper API.