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.
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.
Add a custom connector. Open Customize, then Connectors. Select Add, then Custom, then Web.
Paste your Metorial MCP URL. Name it Metorial, paste your Magic MCP URL (<your-magic-mcp-url>) and continue.
Sign in. Select Add and sign in to load Semantic Scholar tools.
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.
Add a custom MCP server. On ChatGPT web, open Plugins, select +, then Add custom MCP server.
Paste your Metorial MCP URL. Name it Metorial, paste your Magic MCP URL (<your-magic-mcp-url>), choose OAuth and accept the risk notice.
Create and install the plugin. Select Create as a plugin, install it and sign in to load Semantic Scholar tools.
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.
Add Metorial to your MCP config. Use ~/.cursor/mcp.json for every project, or .cursor/mcp.json for one.
Sign in. Open Customize in the sidebar, find Metorial and sign in to load Semantic Scholar tools.
{
"mcpServers":{
"metorial":{
"url":"<your-magic-mcp-url>"
}
}
}
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.
Add the server over HTTP. Add --scope user to use it in every project.
Sign in. Run /mcp, select Metorial and sign in to load Semantic Scholar tools.
claude mcp add --transport http metorial <your-magic-mcp-url>
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.
Add the server and sign in. The Codex CLI, IDE extension and ChatGPT desktop app share this config.
Check the connection. Type /mcp in Codex to see Metorial and its Semantic Scholar tools.
codex mcp add metorial --url <your-magic-mcp-url>
codex mcp login metorial
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.
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.
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.
Does the Semantic Scholar MCP server support triggers?
Semantic Scholar exposes tools your agents call on demand; it does not publish event triggers yet. Everything still runs through one governed MCP URL.
Which AI clients can use the Semantic Scholar MCP server?
Any MCP client, including VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, OpenCode and Grok. Each one reaches the Semantic Scholar MCP server through the same Metorial URL.
How do I give only some teams access to Semantic Scholar?
Use role-based access control to decide which teams, users, and agents can use Semantic Scholar and which of its tools they can call.
Can I self-host the Semantic Scholar MCP server?
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.