Academia MCP

MCP server with tools to search, fetch, analyze, and report on scientific papers and datasets.

- ArXiv search and download
- ACL Anthology search
- Hugging Face datasets search
- Semantic Scholar citations and references
- Web search via Exa, Brave, or Tavily
- Web page crawler, LaTeX compilation, PDF reading
- Optional LLM-powered tools for document QA and research proposal workflows

python -m academia_mcp --transport streamable-http # OR uv run -m academia_mcp --transport streamable-http

- Run over stdio (for local MCP clients like Claude Desktop):

python -m academia_mcp --transport stdio # OR uv run -m academia_mcp --transport stdio

- Transports:stdio,sse,streamable-http.
- host/portare used for HTTP transports; ignored forstdio. Default port is5056(orPORT).

Academia MCP supports optional token-based authentication for HTTP transports (streamable-httpandsse). Authentication is disabled by default to maintain backward compatibility.

Set theENABLE_AUTHenvironment variable totrue:

export ENABLE_AUTH=true export TOKENS_FILE=/path/to/tokens.json # Optional, defaults to ./tokens.json

academia_mcp auth issue-token --client-id=my-client --description="Production API client" # Issue token with 30-day expiration academia_mcp auth issue-token --client-id=test-client --expires-days=30 # Issue token with custom scopes academia_mcp auth issue-token --client-id=admin --scopes="read,write,admin"

academia_mcp auth revoke-token mcp_a1b2c3d4e5f6...

Include the token in theAuthorizationheader with theBearerscheme or as a query parameter apiKey.

- Tokens are displayed only once during issuance. Store them securely.
- Use HTTPS in production to protect tokens in transit.
- Thetokens.jsonfile is automatically created with restrictive permissions (mode 600).
- Tokens are stored in plaintext (standard practice for bearer tokens) - protect the tokens file.

{ "mcpServers": { "academia": { "command": "python3", "args": [ "-m", "academia_mcp", "--transport", "stdio" ] } } }

- arxiv_search: Query arXiv with field-specific queries and filters.
- arxiv_download: Fetch a paper by ID and convert to structured text (HTML/PDF modes).
- anthology_search: Search ACL Anthology with fielded queries and optional date filtering.
- hf_datasets_search: Find Hugging Face datasets with filters and sorting.
- s2_get_citations: List papers citing a given arXiv paper (Semantic Scholar Graph).
- s2_get_references: List papers referenced by a given arXiv paper.
- visit_webpage: Fetch and normalize a web page.
- web_search: Unified search wrapper; available when at least one of Exa/Brave/Tavily keys is set.
- exa_web_search,brave_web_search,tavily_web_search: Provider-specific search.
- get_latex_templates_list,get_latex_template: Enumerate and fetch built-in LaTeX templates.
- compile_latex: Compile LaTeX to PDF inWORKSPACE_DIR.
- read_pdf: Extract text per page from a PDF.
- download_pdf_paper,review_pdf_paper: Download and optionally review PDFs (requires LLM + workspace).
- document_qa: Answer questions over provided document chunks (requires LLM).
- extract_bitflip_info,generate_research_proposals,score_research_proposals: Research proposal helpers (requires LLM).

- SetWORKSPACE_DIRto enablecompile_latex,read_pdf,download_pdf_paper, andreview_pdf_paper.
- SetOPENROUTER_API_KEYto enable LLM tools (document_qa,review_pdf_paper, and bitflip tools).
- Set one or more ofEXA_API_KEY,BRAVE_API_KEY,TAVILY_API_KEYto enableweb_searchand provider tools.

Set as needed, depending on which tools you use:

- OPENROUTER_API_KEY: required for LLM-related tools.
- BASE_URL: override OpenRouter base URL.
- DOCUMENT_QA_MODEL_NAME: override default model fordocument_qa.
- BITFLIP_MODEL_NAME: override default model for bitflip tools.
- TAVILY_API_KEY: enables Tavily inweb_search.
- EXA_API_KEY: enables Exa inweb_searchandvisit_webpage.
- BRAVE_API_KEY: enables Brave inweb_search.
- WORKSPACE_DIR: directory for generated files (PDFs, temp artifacts).
- PORT: HTTP port (default5056).

You can put these in a.envfile in the project root.

docker run --rm -p 5056:5056 \ -e PORT=5056 \ -e OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your_key_here \ -e WORKSPACE_DIR=/workspace \ -v "$PWD/workdir:/workspace" \ academia_mcp

Or use existing image:phoenix120/academia_mcp

- Comprehensive report screencast (YouTube)
- Single paper screencast (YouTube)

sudo apt install texlive-latex-base texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-latex-extra texlive-science latexmk

Query Erick Wendel's contributions, including talks, blog posts, and videos, using natural language.