Papers by Ouroboros Apps MCP server

Papers by Ouroboros

Papers by Ouroboros is a remote MCP server for students, researchers, writers, and clinicians who want an assistant to search and cite real papers. It is a lighter, independent alternative to Consensus, SciSpace, and Elicit.

The assistant can search OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, PubMed, Crossref, and arXiv, open a paper by DOI, PMID, or arXiv id, see what cites a paper or what that paper cites, and format APA, MLA, Chicago, or BibTeX. Every result includes a source link and an identifier that came back from one of those APIs. If an API returns nothing, Papers returns nothing. It does not fill gaps with invented citations.

• Works with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Cursor, and any client that speaks Streamable HTTP plus OAuth 2.1 (dynamic client registration and PKCE)

Hosted server

• MCP server URL: https://papers-mcp.vercel.app/mcp (live, Streamable HTTP, OAuth sign-in)
• Health: https://papers-mcp.vercel.app/health
• Protected-resource metadata: https://papers-mcp.vercel.app/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource
• Connect guide: https://papers-mcp.vercel.app/connect
• Docs: https://ouroborosapps.com/docs/papers
• Registry name: io.github.LAHutchins91/papers (server.json points remotes[0].url at the hosted URL above)

If you self-host, the MCP endpoint is https:///mcp. Set APPBASEURL to that origin and change remotes[0].url in your copy of server.json.

Connect

Leave the client id and secret empty so the client can register itself.

Cursor, in ~/.cursor/mcp.json or a project .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "papers": {
      "url": "https://papers-mcp.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http papers https://papers-mcp.vercel.app/mcp

Other clients: add the same URL and choose OAuth. The consent screen names the assistant and the papers scope. Tool discovery (initialize, tools/list, ping) does not require a token. Calling a tool does.

Tools

• searchpapers — question or keywords, with optional year range, field, open-access flag, and source (openalex, semanticscholar, pubmed, crossref, arxiv, or all)
• get_paper — one record and its abstract, by DOI, PMID, arXiv id, or OpenAlex work id
• findrelatedpapers — cited_by or references for that identifier
• format_citation — apa, mla, chicago, or bibtex from the fetched metadata

Titles are kept as the source wrote them. Author names are split from display names, so particles such as “van” can land in the wrong part and deserve a look before you publish the citation.

Permissions, data, and limits

OAuth scope. One scope, papers. The consent screen names the assistant and that scope. It grants tool calls on this server only. It gives no access to any other account, file, or service.

Operations. All four tools are read-only lookups against public scholarly APIs (readOnlyHint: true, destructiveHint: false). There are no write or delete operations. Papers does not create, change, or remove anything on your behalf, outside the server, or in the scholarly sources.

Confirmations. Because nothing is written or deleted, no tool asks for a confirmation step. The only confirmations are the OAuth consent screen when you connect and Stripe Checkout when you start a trial.

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.