Open-access availability for 120M+ scholarly articles via the Unpaywall API
Unpaywall MCP server is a locally run integration for AI assistants that speak the Model Context Protocol. Open-access availability for 120M+ scholarly articles via the Unpaywall API.
An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for the Unpaywall API — open-access availability for 120M+ scholarly articles.
Once Unpaywall is connected, these are the calls the assistant has available:
unpaywall_lookup — Look up open-access availability by DOI — returns OA status, PDF/landing page URLs, license, all OA locationsunpaywall_search — Search 120M+ article titles with OA filtering and paginationunpaywall_export_ris — Export results as RIS (for Zotero, EndNote, etc.)unpaywall_export_bibtex — Export results as BibTeXYou will need one environment variable: UNPAYWALL_EMAIL. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
unpaywall-mcp-server on PyPI is all you need. Most clients run it directly, so configuration is a few lines and a restart.
Among the developer tooling options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. Unpaywall's toolset — unpaywall_lookup, unpaywall_search, unpaywall_export_ris and 1 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by SMABoundless; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| unpaywall_lookup | Look up open-access availability by DOI — returns OA status, PDF/landing page URLs, license, all OA locations |
| unpaywall_search | Search 120M+ article titles with OA filtering and pagination |
| unpaywall_export_ris | Export results as RIS (for Zotero, EndNote, etc.) |
| unpaywall_export_bibtex | Export results as BibTeX |
{
"mcpServers": {
"unpaywall": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["unpaywall-mcp-server"],
"env": {
"UNPAYWALL_EMAIL": "your-email@example.com"
}
}
}
}Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| UNPAYWALL_EMAIL | Configuration value read at startup. | Optional |
Kill hallucinated APIs — version-accurate, up-to-date library documentation injected straight into context.
Microsoft's official browser automation server — drive a real browser through the accessibility tree, no screenshots needed.
GitHub's official server — repos, issues, pull requests, Actions and code security, straight from your assistant.
Issue tracking at the speed of conversation — Linear's official hosted server with OAuth and zero install.
Local repository surgery — status, diffs, commits, branches and history for any repo on disk.
Timezone sanity for AI — current time anywhere and correct conversions, without the model doing date math.