scholar-mcp 0.8.5

Find the paper. Follow the evidence. Build the field.

Scholar MCP finds papers from natural-language questions, follows citations and related work, and opens the primary text. Save selected papers and notes in a local library that carries your research across sessions.

Natural-language discovery · Related-work discovery · Primary evidence · Field maps · Zotero · Obsidian · Notion connectors

Quick demo

One continuous agent flow: search_papers → build_paper_graph → paper_info + read_paper → paper_library → library connectors.

How it works

Agents call typed MCP tools over stdio or Streamable HTTP. Scholar returns concise text and structured data, while a persistent SQLite library drives FTS5 search, PDF attachments, JSONL snapshots, and Obsidian, Zotero, and Notion connectors.

Quick start

Claude Code:

claude mcp add scholar -- uvx --python 3.12 \
  --find-links https://github.com/Liyux3/scholar-mcp/releases/download/v0.8.5/wheel-index.html \
  --from 'scholar-mcp[rerank]==0.8.5' scholar-mcp

Claude Desktop or any stdio MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scholar": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--python", "3.12",
        "--find-links", "https://github.com/Liyux3/scholar-mcp/releases/download/v0.8.5/wheel-index.html",
        "--from", "scholar-mcp[rerank]==0.8.5", "scholar-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

The direct server exposes the compact core profile. Install uv; it prepares Python 3.12 and the CPU reranker automatically. Optional source keys unlock deeper coverage and higher throughput. macOS desktop bundles include Python and dependencies; the portable launchers also handle machines without uv.

The repository also ships a research plugin with citation graphs, a local paper library, and the Deep Research skill:

# Codex
codex plugin marketplace add Liyux3/scholar-mcp
codex plugin add scholar-mcp@scholar-mcp

# Claude Code
claude plugin marketplace add Liyux3/scholar-mcp
claude plugin install scholar-mcp@scholar-mcp

The same plugin directory follows the Agent Plugins standard for Cursor, Pi, and compatible harnesses. OpenCode can launch uvx scholar-mcp as a local MCP; Pi can use pi-mcp-adapter.

Release artifacts also include the PyPI package, multi-architecture GHCR image, and macOS MCPB bundles. See the complete distribution matrix.

Tools

scholar://status reports source availability and the actual reranker used without occupying the tool surface. Tool responses retain concise YAML text and also expose structured MCP data.

The bundled Deep Research skill turns search, paper inspection, graph traversal, and selected library writes into a living field map.

Retrieval

Keyword APIs receive measured source-specific query budgets. Semantic endpoints keep the original question. Every source contributes independently to one canonical evidence pool.

Results are canonicalized across DOI, arXiv, Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, PubMed, and OpenReview identities. Duplicate records contribute complementary metadata and independent source evidence instead of appearing several times.

DashScope qwen3-rerank is the primary reranker when configured. Install the rerank extra for the FlashRank local fallback: uvx --from 'scholar-mcp[rerank]' scholar-mcp. Containers and MCPB bundles include this extra; the local model downloads on first use and stays in the application data directory. Search ranks the initial matches, follows connections from the strongest papers, then reranks the combined set. Metadata completion overlaps source retrieval, and large pools are scored in batches that respect the model service's document and token limits.

DASHSCOPE_HTTP_BASE_URL=https://<workspace-id>.cn-beijing.maas.aliyuncs.com/api/v1
SCHOLAR_RERANK_MODEL=qwen3-rerank

Request:  query, documents, top_n, model
Response: results: [{index, relevance_score}]

Normal responses focus on papers, with a short warning if availability affected the search. debug=true adds _meta with source coverage, the actual reranker, per-source yield, latency, provenance, and detailed errors. The base parallel-search budget is 30 seconds, configurable through SCHOLAR_SOURCE_BUDGET_S. Google Scholar pagination can extend it up to 120 seconds to retain completed multi-page results.

Measured retrieval quality

In the frozen matched LitSearch run, Scholar achieved a 10-percentage-point higher top-five query hit rate and 6 points higher at top twenty than Exa research-paper search.

Scholar recovered nine top-five hits that Exa missed; Exa recovered four that Scholar missed.

Citation graph and paper library

Rendered from a live local collection, the graph reveals foundations, bridges, and the papers that move a field forward. Stable identities and parallel citation traversal keep the map connected as it grows.

The paper library uses one persistent SQLite authority with WAL transactions and FTS5 search. Existing JSONL collections migrate automatically and remain available as compatibility snapshots. Stable identifiers, notes, tags, PDF paths, connector IDs, and sync revisions stay attached to the same canonical record.

Default data layout:

~/.scholar-mcp/
├── papers/    persistent PDFs
├── kb/
│   ├── library.sqlite3    authority + FTS5 + sync state
│   └── *.jsonl            compatibility snapshots
└── vault/                 Markdown projections and wikilinks

Library connectors

# No login: write directly into an Obsidian vault
scholar-mcp library export obsidian --collection rag --path /path/to/vault

# Dry-run by default; add --apply for external writes
scholar-mcp library sync zotero --collection rag
scholar-mcp library publish notion --collection rag

Obsidian is a live Markdown projection. Zotero manages bibliographic items, collections, tags, and notes. Notion receives a one-way reading-list view. External connectors keep their IDs, versions, and content hashes in SQLite, so unchanged papers do not publish twice.

Paper access

read_paper uses a temporary PDF and reads pages 1-10 by default, which usually reaches the conclusion of an AI conference paper. It returns page-aware Markdown, structured tables when their geometry is reliable, and caption selectors for figures and visual table fallbacks. Pass visual="Figure 3" or another returned selector to receive one focused page crop alongside its text. Pass pages="11-20" to continue into references or appendices. The PDF is removed after extraction. download_paper streams into a staging file, atomically publishes a validated PDF, reuses a valid local copy, and indexes its metadata in the selected collection.

The shared resolution chain covers:

1. Native open-access records and canonical archives such as arXiv and Europe PMC
2. Registered repository resolvers: CORE, OpenAIRE, HAL, Zenodo, and DOAJ
3. bioRxiv, medRxiv, SSRN, ChemRxiv, and other preprint servers
4. Unpaywall and an optional institutional proxy

scholar-mcp sources prints the registry-derived capability matrix. Add --check to test configured search providers, or --check --source arxiv --query "retrieval augmented generation" to inspect one. arXiv falls back to its own HTTPS search when its Atom API is unavailable. Zenodo participates in PDF resolution but stays out of default discovery because its broad publication records add more candidate noise than retrieval value.

Library proxy access

For paywalled papers, download_paper can fetch through your university library's EZproxy login. It runs after Unpaywall and before the optional Sci-Hub step, and only for a single paper you asked for. Scholar never asks for or stores a password. It reuses the session cookies you export from your own browser after logging in.

1. Set LIBRARY_PROXY_PREFIX to your library's proxy login prefix, the part that comes before the paper address, for example https://proxy.library.example.edu/login?url=. Copy it from any proxied link or the library's bookmarklet; no institution is assumed.
2. In Edge or Chrome, log in to the library proxy and open any proxied page.
3. Export cookies for the proxy domain in Netscape cookies.txt format with a cookies.txt extension (for example Get cookies.txt LOCALLY; Edge can install Chrome Web Store extensions). Save the file somewhere private and set LIBRARY_PROXY_COOKIES to its path.
4. Restart the MCP client so it picks up the new environment.

Library sessions are short lived and are controlled by the library, so the export stops working after some hours or when the library ends the session. When the proxy returns its login page, the download message says the session expired; log in again and export a fresh file. The file is a live session credential, so keep it out of git and shared folders. Only cookies belonging to the proxy domain are read; any others in the file are ignored. When a download fails, the message includes a proxied link you can open in your browser while logged in.

If your terminal uses an HTTP proxy, keep the library requests on the same network route as your logged-in browser. For direct library access, add its proxy hostname and subdomains to NO_PROXY.

Configuration

All credentials are optional and remain in the MCP process environment.

Errors returned to the model redact request URLs and credentials. OpenReview public submissions are searched without an account or password.

Development

git clone https://github.com/Liyux3/scholar-mcp.git
cd scholar-mcp
uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest

Unit tests run by default. Run live API tests separately with uv run pytest -m integration.

Connector and feature contributions follow CONTRIBUTING.md. Report security issues through the private process in SECURITY.md; citation metadata is available in CITATION.cff.

Local and Docker clients use stdio by default. Set SCHOLAR_MCP_TRANSPORT=http for Streamable HTTP; the default endpoint is /mcp.

License

Apache License 2.0