Nasa Ads

MCP server for the NASA ADS Astrophysics Data System.

Setup

1. Get an API token: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/user/settings/token
2. export ADS_API_TOKEN=...
3. Install: uv sync (or pip install -e .)

Run

# HTTP (default, binds to :8766)
nasa-ads-mcp

# stdio (for local MCP clients like Claude Desktop)
NASA_ADS_MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio nasa-ads-mcp

Env vars: NASA_ADS_MCP_HOST, NASA_ADS_MCP_PORT, NASA_ADS_MCP_TRANSPORT, ADS_API_TOKEN.

Tools

Tool	Purpose
search	ADS query syntax — author:"^einstein" year:1915, property:refereed, etc.
get_paper / get_abstract	Full record / abstract by bibcode
get_references / get_citations	Outbound / inbound citation lists
bigquery	Batch fetch up to ~2000 bibcodes
metrics	h-index, reads, tori, i10 for a set
export_bibtex / export_refs	BibTeX (or endnote/ris/aastex/…)
resolve_links	arXiv, PDF, DOI, data product links
author_network / paper_network	Visualization graphs

Prompts

• lit_review(topic, years) — themed literature review
• citation_chase(bibcode, depth) — walk the citation graph
• bib_export(query, n, format) — ADS query → bibliography file