PaperPal
FreeNot checkedConnects LLMs to academic research sources for semantic paper searches and detailed information retrieval from arXiv and Hugging Face, enabling literature revie
About
Connects LLMs to academic research sources for semantic paper searches and detailed information retrieval from arXiv and Hugging Face, enabling literature reviews and research exploration
README
🚨 Development has moved to https://github.com/milatechtransfer/paperpal
paperpal
MCP Extension to aid you in searching and writing literature reviews
Check out this conversation with Claude to see what it can do
How it works
paperpal gives your LLMs access to arxiv and Hugging Face papers.
You can then have a natural conversation with your favourite LLMs (e.g. Claude) and have it guide you.
You can:
- Discuss papers
- Look for new papers
- Organize ideas for liteature reviews
- etc.
Of course, this tool is as good as the sum of its parts. LLMs can still hallucinate, and semantic search is never perfect.
Quickstart
There are many different ways with which you can interact with an MCP server.
Claude Desktop App
If this is your first time using an MCP server for Claude Desktop App, see https://modelcontextprotocol.io/quickstart/user
First, clone this repository locally:
git clone https://github.com/jerpint/paperpal
Next, add the extension to your app. Open your configuration file (on macOS this should be ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json) and and add the following to the extension:
For example on MacOS:
{
"mcpServers": {
"paperpal": {
"command": "uv",
"args": [
"--directory",
"/Users/<username>/paperpal",
"run",
"paperpal.py"
]
}
}
}
Restart your Claude Desktop App and you should see it appear.
Cursor
If this is your first time using an MCP server for Cursor, see https://docs.cursor.com/context/model-context-protocol#remote-development
First, clone this repository locally:
git clone https://github.com/jerpint/paperpal
Add this to the root of the project in a .cursor/mcp.json file:
{
"mcpServers": {
"paperpal": {
"command": "/Users/jeremypinto/.cargo/bin/uv",
"args": [
"--directory",
"/Users/jeremypinto/paperpal",
"run",
"paperpal.py"
]
}
}
}
Installing PaperPal
This server has no published package — it is built from source. Open the repository and follow its README.
▸ github.com/jerpint/paperpalFAQ
Is PaperPal MCP free?
Yes, PaperPal MCP is free — one-click install via Unyly at no cost.
Does PaperPal need an API key?
No, PaperPal runs without API keys or environment variables.
Is PaperPal hosted or self-hosted?
Self-hosted: the server runs locally on your machine via the install command above.
How do I install PaperPal in Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor?
Open PaperPal on unyly.org, pick your client tab (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor) and press Install — the config is generated automatically, no JSON editing.
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