OpenAlex MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides access to OpenAlex, a free and open catalog of the world's scholarly works, authors, institutions, and more.

Features

• Search 250M+ scholarly works with full-text search and powerful filters
• Author discovery with publication metrics (h-index, i10-index, citations)
• Institution profiles for universities, research labs, and companies
• Citation network traversal — find what cites a paper and what it cites
• Multiple ID format support — OpenAlex IDs, DOIs, PMIDs, ORCIDs, RORs

Installation

# Clone or copy the project
cd openalex-mcp-server

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the TypeScript
npm run build

Configuration

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
OPENALEX_EMAIL	Email for polite pool (higher rate limits)	user@example.com
TRANSPORT	Transport type: stdio or http	stdio
PORT	Port for HTTP transport	3000

Set your email to get into OpenAlex's "polite pool" with higher rate limits:

export OPENALEX_EMAIL="your.email@example.com"

Usage

With Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openalex": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/openalex-mcp-server/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "OPENALEX_EMAIL": "your.email@example.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

With Claude Code

claude mcp add openalex node /path/to/openalex-mcp-server/dist/index.js

Standalone (HTTP mode)

TRANSPORT=http PORT=3000 npm start

Available Tools

Works (Publications)

Tool	Description
openalex_search_works	Search works with full-text queries and filters
openalex_get_work	Get a single work by OpenAlex ID, DOI, or PMID
openalex_get_citations	Get works that cite a given work
openalex_get_references	Get works cited by a given work

Authors

Tool	Description
openalex_search_authors	Search authors by name
openalex_get_author	Get author profile by OpenAlex ID or ORCID
openalex_get_author_works	Get an author's publications

Institutions

Tool	Description
openalex_search_institutions	Search institutions by name
openalex_get_institution	Get institution profile by OpenAlex ID or ROR
openalex_get_institution_works	Get an institution's publications

Example Queries

Search for recent CRISPR papers

openalex_search_works(
  query: "CRISPR gene therapy",
  filter: "publication_year:2023,open_access.is_oa:true",
  sort: "cited_by_count:desc"
)

Find highly-cited climate research

openalex_search_works(
  query: "climate change",
  filter: "cited_by_count:>1000,type:review"
)

Get citation network for a paper

// Get the paper
openalex_get_work(id: "10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2")

// Get papers that cite it
openalex_get_citations(id: "10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2")

// Get papers it cites
openalex_get_references(id: "10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2")

Explore an author's profile

openalex_search_authors(query: "Fei-Fei Li")
openalex_get_author(id: "A5023888391")
openalex_get_author_works(id: "A5023888391", sort: "cited_by_count:desc")

Find Northwestern University's research output

openalex_search_institutions(query: "Northwestern University")
openalex_get_institution(id: "I111979921")
openalex_get_institution_works(
  id: "I111979921",
  filter: "publication_year:2024",
  sort: "cited_by_count:desc"
)

Filter Syntax

OpenAlex supports powerful filtering. Common filters:

Filter	Examples
publication_year	2023, 2020-2024
open_access.is_oa	true, false
cited_by_count	>100, <10, 100-500
type	article, book, preprint, dataset
authorships.institutions.id	I27837315 (filter by institution)
authorships.author.id	A5023888391 (filter by author)
primary_location.source.id	S137773608 (filter by journal)

Combine multiple filters with commas:

filter: "publication_year:2023,open_access.is_oa:true,cited_by_count:>50"

Response Formats

All tools support two response formats:

• markdown (default): Human-readable formatted output
• json: Structured data for programmatic use

Rate Limits

• Without email: ~10 requests/second
• With email (polite pool): ~100 requests/second

Always set OPENALEX_EMAIL for production use.

Development

# Watch mode for development
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

# Run the server
npm start

License

MIT

Links

• OpenAlex Documentation
• OpenAlex API
• MCP Specification