Paperclip

Paperclip MCP Server enables searching and retrieving research papers from sources like Arxiv, OSF API, and OpenAlex through a Model Context Protocol (MCP) interface. You can host Paperclip yourself to power MCP clients that need access to scholarly content and metadata.

How to use

To use the Paperclip MCP Server with your MCP client, point the client to your hosted MCP endpoint. You will access the server through the MCP URL and perform queries and fetch results from supported paper providers. The server acts as a centralized bridge that aggregates and serves paper metadata and content to MCP clients, so you can integrate it into your research tooling, catalogues, or IDEs. Ensure you host the server on your own domain and configure clients to reach that domain via the MCP path.

Typical use patterns include searching for papers by topic, author, or venue, and retrieving paper metadata or full-text if available through the underlying providers. You can integrate Paperclip with MCP clients such as cursor-based interfaces or other MCP-enabled tooling, using your own server URL as the endpoint. If you run into connectivity or provider issues, verify that your server is reachable at the configured URL and that the provider sources are currently available.

How to install

Prerequisites: you need a host to run the server (a VPS or similar). Ensure you have a modern Node.js runtime or a compatible environment if you plan to run a Node-based server, and you can use the standard deployment flow to set up the MCP server on your host.

Step 1: Prepare your host
- Update your system packages
- Install Git
- Install Node.js and npm (or the runtime your server uses)
- Open port 443 (and 80 for redirection if applicable) and ensure TLS certificates are configured for your domain.

Step 2: Obtain the Paperclip MCP Server code

• Clone the repository to your host
• Navigate into the project directory

Step 3: Install dependencies

• Install required packages
• Build the server if a build step is provided by the project

Step 4: Run the server

• Start the server in a persistent way (e.g., using a process manager)

Example commands you can run on your host (adjust to your environment):

git clone https://github.com/matsjfunke/paperclip.git cd paperclip npm install npm run build npm start

## Configuration and endpoints

The server is accessible via an MCP URL once hosted. The following is an example MCP client configuration to point to your hosted Paperclip MCP Server over HTTP. Use your actual domain where indicated.

{ "mcpServers": { "paperclip": { "url": "https://<your-server-domain.com>/mcp" } } }