Semantic Scholar MCP server

Connect Semantic Scholar to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, GitHub Copilot and any other MCP client, for your whole team. Metorial adds security, governance, and tracing, and gives everyone one Magic MCP URL to connect.

What you can do with the Semantic Scholar MCP server

Ask your agent in plain language. Each of these maps to a real tool on the server.

  • Use the get datasets tool in Semantic Scholar
  • Use the get citations & references tool in Semantic Scholar
  • Use the search papers tool in Semantic Scholar
  • Use the recommend papers tool in Semantic Scholar
  • Use the get paper details tool in Semantic Scholar
  • Use the get author papers tool in Semantic Scholar

Supported Tools

get_datasets

Get Datasets

Access Semantic Scholar dataset releases for large-scale offline research. List available releases, get release details, or retrieve download links for specific datasets. Discover the datasets available in each release before selecting files.

get_citations

Get Citations & References

Explore the citation network of a paper. Retrieve either the **citations** (papers that cite the given paper) or the **references** (papers cited by the given paper). Each result includes citation context snippets, intent classification, and metadata about the citing/cited paper.

search_papers

Search Papers

Search for academic papers by keyword query. Returns papers ranked by relevance with metadata including title, abstract, authors, citation counts, and more. Supports filtering by year range, publication date, publication type, fields of study, venue, minimum citation count, and open access availability. Use the **fields** parameter to control which metadata is returned for each paper.

recommend_papers

Recommend Papers

Get paper recommendations based on example papers. Two modes are available: - **Single paper**: Provide one paper ID to get recommendations similar to it. Choose the pool: "recent" (recently published) or "all-cs" (all computer science papers). - **Multi-paper**: Provide a list of positive example paper IDs (and optionally negative examples) to get recommendations based on the combined signal.

get_paper

Get Paper Details

Retrieve detailed metadata for one or more academic papers. Supports lookup by Semantic Scholar ID, CorpusId, DOI, ArXiv ID, MAG, ACL, PMID, PMCID, or URL. For single paper lookup, provide the **paperId**. For batch lookup of up to 500 papers, provide **paperIds** as an array. Use the **fields** parameter to control which metadata is returned.

get_author_papers

Get Author Papers

Retrieve the list of papers published by a specific author. Returns paginated paper results with configurable metadata fields. Supports filtering by publication date range.

search_authors

Search Authors

Search for academic authors by name. Returns matching author profiles with metadata including affiliations, paper count, citation count, and h-index. Use the **fields** parameter to control which author metadata is returned.

autocomplete_papers

Autocomplete Papers

Get autocomplete suggestions for a partial paper query. Useful for building search interfaces or quickly finding papers by partial title.

get_author

Get Author Details

Retrieve detailed profile information for one or more authors by their Semantic Scholar author IDs. Returns metadata including name, affiliations, paper count, citation count, h-index, and optionally their publication list. For single author lookup, provide **authorId**. For batch lookup of up to 1,000 authors, provide **authorIds**.

match_paper

Match Paper Title

Find the single paper whose title most closely matches a query. Returns the provider match score and requested metadata; no match produces a provider error.

get_paper_authors

Get Paper Authors

Retrieve a paginated list of a paper’s authors with requested profile fields and optional publication metadata.

search_snippets

Search Paper Snippets

Find relevant excerpts from paper titles, abstracts, and body text, with source metadata, retrieval scores, and the provider’s license and usage notices.

search_papers_bulk

Bulk Search Papers

Search large sets of papers using Boolean query syntax, filters, sorting, and continuation tokens. Results are not ranked by relevance.

Connect Semantic Scholar to your AI client

Every client uses the same Magic MCP URL, and so does any other MCP client. Add it once and sign in with SSO.

  1. Enable Semantic Scholar in Metorial. In your Metorial portal, enable the Semantic Scholar MCP server and sign in with the account that owns the data. Access stays governed by your team policies.
  2. Add a custom connector. Open Customize, then Connectors. Select Add, then Custom, then Web.
  3. Paste your Metorial MCP URL. Name it Metorial, paste your Magic MCP URL (<your-magic-mcp-url>) and continue.
  4. Sign in. Select Add and sign in to load Semantic Scholar tools.

Run Semantic Scholar through the Metorial gateway

One governed layer for every app your agents reach, not a separate connector per tool.

  • Give Semantic Scholar and every other app to your whole team through one MCP gateway, behind your SSO.
  • Scope which teams and agents can use Semantic Scholar tools with role-based access control, and trace every call.
  • Prefer to run it yourself? Metorial is open source and self-hostable.

More integrations teams use with Semantic Scholar

GitHub

Manage repositories, issues, and pull requests. Create and configure branches, star repositories, review code, and merge changes. Automate CI/CD workflows with GitHub Actions, manage workflow runs, secrets, and artifacts. Track issues with labels, milestones, and assignees. Search across code, repositories, issues, and users. Manage organizations, teams, and memberships. Create and manage projects, gists, packages, deployments, and environments. Access security alerts including code scanning, secret scanning, and Dependabot alerts. Read and write file contents in repositories. Manage webhooks, notifications, and codespaces.

Salesforce

Manage CRM data including Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Cases, and custom objects. Create, read, update, and delete records. Query data using SOQL and search across objects using SOSL. Perform bulk data operations for large-scale imports, exports, and migrations. Execute composite requests to batch multiple operations in a single API call. Access analytics, reports, and dashboards. Manage files and attachments associated with records. Interact with Chatter feeds, posts, and groups for social collaboration. Manage org metadata including custom objects, fields, layouts, and workflows. Query data using GraphQL for precise data retrieval across related objects.

Sharepoint

Manage SharePoint sites, document libraries, lists, and files. Create, read, update, and delete lists and list items with custom columns. Resolve site users to numeric Person/Group LookupId values. Upload, download, move, copy, and version files in document libraries. Search across sites, files, folders, lists, and list items using Microsoft Search. Manage permissions at site, list, and item levels with granular access control. Define and manage content types and site columns. Retrieve site properties and search for sites across Microsoft 365.

Airtable

Create, read, update, and delete records in Airtable bases and tables. Manage base schemas including creating tables and fields. Filter records using formulas, sort by fields, and scope queries to specific views. Upsert records to find, create, or update in a single call. Upload attachments to records, read and write record comments, list accessible bases, and receive real-time base change events through webhooks.

Sentry

Track, manage, and resolve application errors and performance issues. List, query, and bulk-update issues and error events with filters like status, assignment, and tags. Create and manage releases, associate commits, and upload source maps. Configure issue alert rules and metric alert rules with notification actions. Set up cron monitors to detect missed or failed scheduled jobs. Build custom dashboards with configurable widgets. Run ad-hoc Discover queries across errors and transactions for performance analysis. Manage organizations, teams, projects, and members. Provision users via SCIM. Access session replay data.

Bitbucket

Manage Git repositories, pull requests, and CI/CD pipelines on Bitbucket Cloud. Create, fork, and configure repositories within workspaces and projects. Create, review, approve, merge, and decline pull requests with inline code comments. Browse source code, list commits, and manage branches and tags. Trigger, monitor, and manage Bitbucket Pipelines. List workspace members, configure repository default reviewers and branch restrictions, create and manage repository webhooks, and search code across repositories.

Technical notes for Semantic Scholar

Search and retrieve academic paper metadata from over 200 million scientific publications. Find papers by keyword queries with filters for year, venue, fields of study, and citation count. Look up detailed paper metadata including titles, abstracts, authors, citation counts, TLDR summaries, and SPECTER2 embeddings using various identifiers (DOI, ArXiv ID, PMID, etc.). Explore citation and reference graphs to trace connections between papers. Look up author profiles with publication history, affiliations, h-index, and citation metrics. Get paper autocomplete suggestions and paper recommendations based on positive and negative examples. Discover full dataset releases and prepare selected dataset files for large-scale offline research.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about connecting Semantic Scholar to AI agents with Metorial.

  1. How many tools does the Semantic Scholar MCP server have?
    The Semantic Scholar MCP server exposes 13 tools, including Get Datasets, Get Citations & References, Search Papers. Each one is governed and traced through Metorial.
  2. Semantic Scholar exposes tools your agents call on demand; it does not publish event triggers yet. Everything still runs through one governed MCP URL.
  3. Any MCP client, including VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, OpenCode and Grok. Each one reaches the Semantic Scholar MCP server through the same Metorial URL.
  4. Use role-based access control to decide which teams, users, and agents can use Semantic Scholar and which of its tools they can call.
  5. Yes. Metorial is open source, so you can run the Semantic Scholar MCP server yourself or use the hosted gateway.

Connect Semantic Scholar to production AI agents

See how Metorial gives your team governed access to Semantic Scholar, with tracing and security controls built in.