perplexity-search-cli 1.0.11

Command line interface for Perplexity AI API

Perplexity Search CLI

A command line interface for interacting with the Perplexity AI API.

Features

• Query the Perplexity API from command line
• Accepts input from arguments or stdin
• Supports API key from environment variable or command line
• Source citations with inline cross-references (enabled by default)
• Optionally save full JSON responses to file
• Clean, formatted output
• Claude Code MCP integration (PPWebSearch tool, one-command setup)

Installation

Install directly from PyPI:

pip install perplexity-search-cli

After installation, you will see instructions to register it as a Claude Code MCP server.

From source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/perplexity-search-cli.git
cd perplexity-search-cli
pip install .

Development install

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/perplexity-search-cli.git
cd perplexity-search-cli
pip install -e .

Usage

Basic query:

perplexity-search-cli -p "Your question" -k YOUR_API_KEY

Using environment variable:

export PPLX_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
perplexity-search-cli -p "Your question"

Pipe input from stdin:

echo "Your question" | perplexity-search-cli -k YOUR_API_KEY

Save full JSON response:

perplexity-search-cli -p "Your question" -k YOUR_API_KEY -o response.json

Options

  -h, --help            show help message
  -p PROMPT, --prompt PROMPT
                        Prompt to send to Perplexity API
  -k API_KEY, --api-key API_KEY
                        Perplexity API key (or set PPLX_API_KEY env var)
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        Path to save full JSON response
  -n, --no-citations    Disable printing source citations
  --params PARAMS       Additional API parameters as JSON string

Citations

By default, source URLs referenced in the response are printed below the content:

The speed of light is approximately 299,792 km/s [1] in a vacuum [2].

Sources:
  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
  [2] https://physics.nist.gov/...

To disable citations:

perplexity-search-cli -p "Your question" --no-citations

Example with Additional Parameters

perplexity-search-cli -p "Your question" -k YOUR_API_KEY \
  --params '{"temperature": 0.7, "max_tokens": 100}'

Claude Code MCP Integration

This package can be registered as a Claude Code MCP server, exposing a PPWebSearch tool.

Register with Claude Code

export PPLX_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
perplexity-install-claude-mcp

This registers the MCP server globally for the current user. Re-run any time to update the registration.

Verify with claude mcp list or /mcp inside Claude Code.

Requirements

• Python 3.6+
• requests
• mcp[cli]

Publishing New Versions

1. Update version in pyproject.toml
2. Commit changes
3. Create a new git tag:

git tag vX.Y.Z  # match version in pyproject.toml
git push origin vX.Y.Z

The GitHub Action will automatically:

• Build the package
• Publish to PyPI when tags are pushed