semantic-scholar-mcp

Lightweight MCP server wrapping the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph API.

Installation

npm install @noesynth/semantic-scholar-mcp

Or use directly with npx:

npx @noesynth/semantic-scholar-mcp

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | paper | Get full metadata for a single paper (S2 ID, ARXIV:xxx, DOI:xxx, PMID:xxx, URL:xxx) | | paperBatch | Batch fetch up to 500 papers in one call | | references | Outgoing references with citation context, intent, and influence flag | | citations | Incoming citations with citation context, intent, and influence flag | | recommendations | Recommended papers based on positive/negative seed papers | | author | Author profile (name, affiliations, h-index, paper/citation counts) | | authorPapers | All papers by an author with full metadata | | relevanceSearch | Search papers by keyword with filters (year, field, citations, open access) |

Setup

For Development

git clone https://github.com/noesynth/semantic-scholar-mcp.git
cd semantic-scholar-mcp
npm install
npm run build

API Key (Optional)

Set SS_API_KEY environment variable for higher rate limits (100 req/s vs 1 req/s unauthenticated).

Get your API key at Semantic Scholar API.

Usage

With Claude Desktop / MCP Clients

Add to your MCP configuration (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semantic-scholar": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@noesynth/semantic-scholar-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SS_API_KEY": "<your-key-here>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Running Standalone

npm run mcp

Testing

npm test                                                        # unit tests (75)
SS_API_KEY=<key> npx vitest run tests/integration.test.ts      # live API tests

License

Apache-2.0