Content
# 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).
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