MCP Scholarly Server

You run an MCP Scholarly Server to search for academic articles via arXiv and related scholarly sources. This server exposes a search tool that lets you query articles by keyword and retrieve relevant results, helping you quickly locate scholarly content for research, coursework, or writing.

How to use

You connect to the MCP Scholarly Server using a compatible MCP client. Use the search tool by providing a keyword related to the topic you want to explore. The server will return a list of relevant articles from arXiv and other scholarly sources, enabling you to refine your search and gather credible references for your work.

Typical usage patterns include starting a session with your MCP client, invoking the search-arxiv tool with your chosen keyword, and reviewing the results. You can perform iterative searches by changing the keyword and re-running the search to build a focused collection of articles.

How to install

Prerequisites you should have before installing: Node.js and npm (or an environment that can run MCP servers). You may also use Docker if you prefer containerized execution.

Step 1: Install the MCP Scholarly server via Smithery for Claude Desktop automation.

npx -y @smithery/cli install mcp-scholarly --client claude

Step 2: If you want to run the server locally in development mode, you can use the following stdio configuration where the runtime command is uv with the development directory and run script.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-scholarly": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/Users/adityakarnam/PycharmProjects/mcp-scholarly/mcp-scholarly",
        "run",
        "mcp-scholarly"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Additional setup options

If you prefer a published (runtime) configuration without local development tooling, you can run the server via a pre-packaged runtime. The following is a complete stdio configuration example you can place in your MCP client settings.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-scholarly": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-scholarly"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Additional Docker option

If you prefer running this as a Docker container, use the published Docker server configuration to start the server.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-scholarly": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "--rm", "-i",
        "mcp/scholarly"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Notes on deployment

You can also deploy using the Smithery workflow to automatically configure Claude Desktop for this MCP server. The command to initiate this is shown in the install step above.

Available tools

search-arxiv

Search arxiv for articles related to the given keyword. The tool takes a required string argument named keyword and returns a list of relevant scholarly articles.