Mcp Semantic Scholar Server

Name: Mcp Semantic Scholar Server
Author: benhaotang

by benhaotang

MCP server for Semantic Scholar to search for papers

21 0 tools GitHub

No known CVEs

MIT license

Stale

Last commit 410d ago

Works with most clients

Transport: stdio, http

0 tools

Grade F

Edit this pageView history

Education Search

Step 1

Install in your client

Config is the same across clients — only the file and path differ.

Supported in Claude Desktopstdio, http · Node 18+

Paste into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-semantic-scholar-server": {
      "command": "<see-readme>",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

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Read me

What Mcp Semantic Scholar Server does

Made with mcp-python-sdk

Test This Server

No automated test available for this server. Check the GitHub README for setup instructions.

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Score breakdown

25/100across 5 weighted dimensions

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Security

OSV.dev

No known CVEs.

No package registry to scan.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Mcp Semantic Scholar Server safe to use?: Mcp Semantic Scholar Server has no known CVEs as of the latest MCPpedia security scan. It does not require authentication, so any local process can connect — keep this in mind in shared environments. Licensed under MIT.
How do I install Mcp Semantic Scholar Server?: Mcp Semantic Scholar Server can be installed by cloning its GitHub repository and following the setup instructions in the README.
What AI clients work with Mcp Semantic Scholar Server?: Mcp Semantic Scholar Server is compatible with claude-desktop, cursor, claude-code. It uses stdio and http transport.
Is Mcp Semantic Scholar Server actively maintained?: Mcp Semantic Scholar Server is not actively maintained — last commit was 410 days ago. It has 21 GitHub stars.

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Community

Discussion

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Has anyone used this with Cursor?How do you handle auth?Any alternatives?

Usage

Requirements: pip install -r requirements.txt

Run mcp dev path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py to initialize the server.

Run mcp install path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py to install to claude or add following to claude/cline config:

"semantic-scholar": { "command": "uv", "args": [ "run", "--with", "mcp", "mcp", "run", "/path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py" ] }

[!NOTE] Currently using uv with mcp seems to break certain Linux/macOS version of Claude-desktop, you might need to set as:

"semantic-scholar": {
      "command": "/path/to/mcp",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "/path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py"
      ]
    }

instead, with /path/to/mcp got from running which mcp in terminal

API Key

To use the Semantic Scholar API with higher rate limits, you can set your API key as an environment variable:

export SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY="your_api_key"

or set by adding an env key in mcp settings by:

"semantic-scholar": { "command": ..., "args": ..., "env": { "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your_api_key" } }

Known issues

If you see things like INFO Processing request of type __init__.py:431 ListToolsRequest in cline, you can ignore them as this will not affect it from working, this is because cline parse tool list together with console debug infos, and current python-sdk cannot disable console messages. This will not affect any function calling part other than seeing this warning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Mcp Semantic Scholar Server safe to use?

Mcp Semantic Scholar Server has no known CVEs as of the latest MCPpedia security scan. It does not require authentication, so any local process can connect — keep this in mind in shared environments. Licensed under MIT.

How do I install Mcp Semantic Scholar Server?

Mcp Semantic Scholar Server can be installed by cloning its GitHub repository and following the setup instructions in the README.

What AI clients work with Mcp Semantic Scholar Server?

Mcp Semantic Scholar Server is compatible with claude-desktop, cursor, claude-code. It uses stdio and http transport.

Is Mcp Semantic Scholar Server actively maintained?

Mcp Semantic Scholar Server is not actively maintained — last commit was 410 days ago. It has 21 GitHub stars.

Semantic Scholar API MCP server

Made with mcp-python-sdk

[!IMPORTANT]
if you are still using FastMCP version of this mcp server, please consider pull this repo again and update to newer versions as FastMCP is already deprecated.

Usage

Requirements: pip install -r requirements.txt

Run mcp dev path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py to initialize the server.

Run mcp install path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py to install to claude or add following to claude/cline config:

"semantic-scholar": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--with",
        "mcp",
        "mcp",
        "run",
        "/path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py"
      ]
    }

[!NOTE] Currently using uv with mcp seems to break certain Linux/macOS version of Claude-desktop, you might need to set as:
"semantic-scholar": {
      "command": "/path/to/mcp",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "/path/to/semantic-scholar-plugin.py"
      ]
    }
instead, with /path/to/mcp got from running which mcp in terminal

API Key

To use the Semantic Scholar API with higher rate limits, you can set your API key as an environment variable:

export SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY="your_api_key"

or set by adding an env key in mcp settings by:

"semantic-scholar": {
      "command": ...,
      "args": ...,
      "env": {
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "your_api_key"
      }
}

You can get an API key by filling out the form at: https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/api

Suggested Agent System prompt

See: benhaotang/my_agent_system_prompt, the AI pre-research agent that can make full use of this mcp server.

Known issues

If you see things like INFO Processing request of type __init__.py:431 ListToolsRequest in cline, you can ignore them as this will not affect it from working, this is because cline parse tool list together with console debug infos, and current python-sdk cannot disable console messages. This will not affect any function calling part other than seeing this warning.