@sura_ai/papers

MCP server for academic paper metadata resolution. Search papers, resolve DOIs, and traverse citation graphs — all from your AI assistant.

Built on public academic APIs (CrossRef, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar). No account or API key required to get started.

What it does

This server gives your AI assistant access to the academic literature. It can:

• Search for papers by title, topic, or keywords across CrossRef
• Search for full text papers via CORE (opt-in, requires API key)
• Resolve DOIs to full metadata (title, authors, journal, year, abstract, etc.)
• Look up papers by title with fuzzy matching and confidence scoring
• Traverse citation graphs — find what a paper cites and what cites it, with citation context sentences when available

Data is fetched from multiple sources and merged for the best coverage:

• CrossRef — bibliographic metadata, DOI resolution, full-text search
• OpenAlex — abstracts, citation counts, open access status
• Semantic Scholar — citation context, TLDR summaries, influence scores
• CORE — full text access for 46M+ open access papers (opt-in)

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | search_papers | Search for academic papers by query (up to 20 results). Set fullText=true to search CORE for papers with full text. | | get_paper_metadata | Get metadata by DOI or title (tries DOI first, falls back to fuzzy title search). Set fullText=true to also fetch full text from CORE. | | get_citation_graph | Traverse references and/or citations for a paper (up to 50 per direction) |

Setup

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "papers": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@sura_ai/papers"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add papers -- npx -y @sura_ai/papers

Environment Variables

All optional. Without them, the server uses CrossRef (free, no key needed) with basic rate limits.

| Variable | Effect | |----------|--------| | PAPERS_CONTACT_EMAIL | Email for CrossRef/OpenAlex polite pool — significantly higher rate limits | | OPENALEX_API_KEY | Enables OpenAlex enrichment (abstracts, citation counts, open access info) | | SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY | Higher rate limits for Semantic Scholar (citation context, TLDR, influence) | | CORE_API_KEY | Enables CORE full text search and retrieval (register here) |

With env vars

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "papers": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@sura_ai/papers"],
      "env": {
        "PAPERS_CONTACT_EMAIL": "[email protected]",
        "OPENALEX_API_KEY": "your-openalex-key",
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your-s2-key",
        "CORE_API_KEY": "your-core-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

License

MIT