Paper Find MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for searching and downloading academic papers from multiple platforms. Designed for LLM tools like Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.

中文文档

Supported Platforms

Core Platforms

RePEc/IDEAS Features

RePEc is the largest open economics bibliography, with rich search options:

Search Fields: Full text / Abstract / Keywords / Title / Author

Sort Options: Relevance / Newest / Oldest / Citations / Recent & Relevant

Document Types: Journal Articles / Working Papers / Book Chapters / Books

Institution/Journal Filters:

Quick Start

Installation

Install from PyPI (recommended):

# Using uv (recommended)
uv pip install paper-find-mcp

# Or using pip
pip install paper-find-mcp

Install from source:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/h-lu/paper-find-mcp.git
cd paper-find-mcp

# Install with uv
uv pip install -e .

# Or use pip
pip install -e .

Configure Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS):

Using uvx (recommended, no pre-installation required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paper_find_server": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["paper-find-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "",
        "CROSSREF_MAILTO": "your_email@example.com",
        "NCBI_API_KEY": "",
        "PAPER_DOWNLOAD_PATH": "~/paper_downloads"
      }
    }
  }
}

Using pip installed package:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paper_find_server": {
      "command": "paper-find-mcp",
      "args": [],
      "env": {
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "",
        "CROSSREF_MAILTO": "your_email@example.com",
        "NCBI_API_KEY": "",
        "PAPER_DOWNLOAD_PATH": "~/paper_downloads"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage Guide

Choose Tools by Discipline

General academic search    → search_semantic or search_crossref
CS/Physics preprints       → search_arxiv
Biomedical                 → search_pubmed + download_scihub(doi)
Economics                  → search_repec (supports NBER, IMF, Fed, AER, etc.)
Cryptography               → search_iacr
Download paywalled papers  → download_scihub(doi) [pre-2023]

Typical Workflow

# 1. Search for papers
papers = search_semantic("climate change agriculture", max_results=5)

# 2. Get DOI
doi = papers[0]["doi"]

# 3. Download via Sci-Hub (older papers)
pdf_path = download_scihub(doi)

# 4. Read full text
text = read_scihub_paper(doi)

RePEc Economics Search Examples

# Search NBER working papers
search_repec("inflation expectations", series='nber')

# Search AER journal articles, sorted by newest
search_repec("causal inference", series='aer', sort_by='newest')

# Search Fed papers, with year filter
search_repec("monetary policy", series='fed', year_from=2020)

# Search by author
search_repec("Acemoglu", search_field='author')

# Get paper details (with full abstract)
get_repec_paper("https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/32000.html")

Complete Tool List

Search Tools

Download Tools

Read Tools (PDF → Markdown)

Helper Tools

Environment Variables

Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/h-lu/paper-find-mcp.git
cd paper-find-mcp

# Create virtual environment
uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate

# Install dev dependencies
uv pip install -e .

# Run tests
uv run pytest tests/ -v

License

MIT License

Original code based on paper-search-mcp
Copyright (c) 2025 OPENAGS

Modifications and enhancements
Copyright (c) 2025 Haibo Lu

🎓 Happy researching!