Semanticscholar MCP Server

by smaboundless Your server? Claim it

local only

Semanticscholar runs on your own machine — the client starts it, so there is no endpoint to ping. 42 installs a week from npm. Last commit 5 Jul 2026.

Search 200M+ papers, authors, citations, and recommendations via Semantic Scholar

Installs per day peak 96 · avg 11 · +65% w/w

a month agotoday

Installs / week

npm · semanticscholar-mcp-server

Stars

0 open issues

5 Jul 2026

Last commit

0 releases in 90 days

—

License

TypeScript

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check Semanticscholar every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Connect this server

This server runs on your own machine — install it with the package manager and the client starts it for you. Package name taken from the official registry entry.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex Cursor VS Code

run in your terminal

claude mcp add semanticscholar -- npx -y semanticscholar-mcp-server

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semanticscholar": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "semanticscholar-mcp-server"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.semanticscholar]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "semanticscholar-mcp-server"]

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semanticscholar": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "semanticscholar-mcp-server"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "semanticscholar": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "semanticscholar-mcp-server"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

This one needs environment variables set before it will start: SEMANTICSCHOLAR_API_KEY (Semantic Scholar API key from https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/api (optional but recommended for higher rate limits)). The author declared them in the registry entry; get the values from the project itself.

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Semanticscholar — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

Why is there no uptime for Semanticscholar?

Semanticscholar runs on your own machine over stdio — there is no network address to reach, so uptime cannot be measured for it by anyone. What can be measured is adoption: the npm package semanticscholar-mcp-server was installed 42 times last week.

How do I connect Semanticscholar?

Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It runs locally, so the command pulls semanticscholar-mcp-server straight from npm; nothing to host, nothing to sign up for.

How many people use Semanticscholar?

The npm package semanticscholar-mcp-server was installed 42 times in the last week. Week over week that is +65%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.

Is Semanticscholar open source?

We cannot say either way: written in TypeScript and 0 stars on GitHub, but we could not determine the licence, and without one the code is not open source by default.