An MCP server for academic literature workflows in Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients.
Scholar Search is an MCP project maintained in the silung/scholar-search-mcp repository. The maintainer describes its purpose as “An MCP server for academic literature workflows in Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients”. Read the project documentation for the complete scope.
The project provides a local client configuration using python. Follow the repository’s build and installation steps before copying it, and replace example paths with the paths on your own computer.
The example declares SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR, SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_ARXIV. Secret-looking values have been replaced with placeholders. Required and optional labels are shown only when the documentation states them.
Project documentation · Repository · Discovery listing. This profile records the public documentation checked on 2026-10-08.
Check the linked publisher documentation and your connected client's tool list. Names and availability can vary with the server version and account permissions.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| search_papers | Search papers with optional limit, fields, year, venue. |
| get_paper_details | Get one paper by DOI, arXiv ID, S2 ID, or URL. |
| get_paper_citations | Get papers that cite a given paper. |
| get_paper_references | Get references of a given paper. |
| get_author_info | Get an author profile by ID. |
| get_author_papers | Get papers by a given author. |
| get_paper_recommendations | Get similar paper recommendations. |
| batch_get_papers | Batch fetch paper details (up to 500 IDs). |
| download_arxiv_source | Download and extract arXiv source bundle (tar.gz). |
{
"mcpServers": {
"scholar-search": {
"command": "python",
"args": [
"-m",
"scholar_search_mcp"
],
"env": {
"SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR": "true",
"SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_ARXIV": "true"
}
}
}
}From the project documentation. Replace placeholders and example paths before connecting.
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR | Declared in the maintainer’s client configuration. | Check documentation |
| SCHOLAR_SEARCH_ENABLE_ARXIV | Declared in the maintainer’s client configuration. | Check documentation |
Inspect PostgreSQL schemas and run read-only queries with the archived MCP reference server. Review its maintenance status before choosing it.
Use Firecrawl MCP to retrieve website content and extract information for research through Firecrawl’s API-backed web tools.
Enables programmatic access to the IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive for efficient retrieval of cryptographic research papers.
Manage educational context based on courses, assignments, and exams using a knowledge graph.
MCP server with tools to search, fetch, analyze, and report on scientific papers and datasets.
Scholarly search: OpenAlex, Crossref, arXiv, OpenCitations and PubMed in one endpoint.