arxiv-mcp-server

# arXiv MCP Server [](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) [](https://www.python.org/downloads/) [](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) [](https://smithery.ai/server/@prashalruchiranga/arxiv-mcp-server) A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables interacting with the arXiv API using natural language. ## Features - Retrieve metadata about scholarly articles hosted on arXiv.org - Download articles in PDF format to the local machine - Search arXiv database for a particular query - Retrieve articles and load them into a large language model (LLM) context ## Tools - **get_article_url** - Retrieve the URL of an article hosted on arXiv.org based on its title - `title` (String): Article title - **download_article** - Download the article hosted on arXiv.org as a PDF file - `title` (String): Article title - **load_article_to_context** - Load the article hosted on arXiv.org into context of a LLM - `title` (String): Article title - **get_details** - Retrieve metadata of an article hosted on arXiv.org based on its title - `title` (String): Article title - **search_arxiv** - Performs a search query on the arXiv API based on specified parameters and returns matching article metadata - `all_fields` (String): General keyword search across all metadata fields - `title` (String): Keyword(s) to search for within the titles of articles - `author` (String): Author name(s) to filter results by - `abstract` (String): Keyword(s) to search for within article abstracts - `start` (int): Index of the first result to return ## Setup ### MacOS Clone the repository ``` git clone https://github.com/prashalruchiranga/arxiv-mcp-server.git cd arxiv-mcp-server ``` Install `uv` package manager. For more details on installing, visit the [official uv documentation](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation/). ``` # Using Homebrew brew install uv # or curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh ``` Create and activate virtual environment. ``` uv venv --python=python3.13 source .venv/bin/activate ``` Install development dependencies. ``` uv sync ``` ### Windows Install `uv` package manager. For more details on installing, visit the [official uv documentation](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation/). ``` # Use irm to download the script and execute it with iex powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex" ``` Close and reopen the shell, then clone the repository. ``` git clone https://github.com/prashalruchiranga/arxiv-mcp-server.git cd arxiv-mcp-server ``` Create and activate virtual environment. ``` uv venv --python=python3.13 source .venv\Scripts\activate ``` Install development dependencies. ``` uv sync ``` ## Usage with Claude Desktop To enable this integration, add the server configuration to your `claude_desktop_config.json` file. Make sure to create the file if it doesn’t exist. On MacOS: `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json` On Windows: `%APPDATA%/Roaming/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json` ``` { "mcpServers": { "arxiv-server": { "command": "uv", "args": [ "--directory", "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/PARENT/FOLDER/arxiv-mcp-server/src/arxiv_server", "run", "server.py" ], "env": { "DOWNLOAD_PATH": "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/DOWNLOADS/FOLDER" } } } } ``` You may need to put the full path to the uv executable in the command field. You can get this by running `which uv` on MacOS or `where uv` on Windows. ## Example Prompts ``` Can you get the details of 'Reasoning to Learn from Latent Thoughts' paper? ``` ``` Get the papers authored or co-authored by Yann Lecun on convolutional neural networks ``` ``` Download the attention is all you need paper ``` ``` Can you get the papers by Andrew NG which have 'convolutional neural networks' in title? ``` ``` Can you display the paper? ``` ``` List the titles of papers by Yann LeCun. Paginate through the API until there are 30 titles ``` ## License Licensed under MIT. See the [LICENSE](https://github.com/prashalruchiranga/arxiv-mcp-server/blob/main/LICENSE).