What is openalex-mcp-server?

A plugin that lets coding agents search OpenAlex, an academic catalog containing research publications.

Use it to access academic records through MCP, a standard way for AI tools to call external data services, using local or network-based connections.

It provides access to scholarly publication data when general project context is not enough for research-oriented questions.

openalex-mcp-server — Plugin for Claude Code by cyanheads

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/plugins/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server/openalex-mcp-server/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/plugins/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server/openalex-mcp-server)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/plugins/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server/openalex-mcp-server"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/plugins/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server/openalex-mcp-server/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/plugins/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server/openalex-mcp-server"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/plugins/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server/openalex-mcp-server.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session not measured What this adds to a session before it is invoked.

When invoked not measured The manifest loads nothing itself; its 33 skills, 1 MCP server cost 2,497 tokens a session between them.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Security

Grade A, and why

openalex-mcp-server scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude-plugin/plugin.json · 56 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 56 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

{
  "$schema": "https://json.schemastore.org/claude-code-plugin-manifest.json",
  "name": "openalex-mcp-server",
  "version": "0.9.0",
  "description": "Access the OpenAlex academic research catalog — 270M+ publications — via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.",
  "author": {
    "name": "Casey Hand",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "url": "https://caseyjhand.com"
  },
  "homepage": "https://github.com/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server#readme",
  "repository": "https://github.com/cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server",
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "keywords": ["mcp", "mcp-server", "model-context-protocol", "openalex", "academic-research", "scholarly-data"],
  "userConfig": {
    "OPENALEX_API_KEY": {
      "type": "string",
      "title": "OpenAlex API key",
      "description": "Optional. OpenAlex account key (free from openalex.org/settings/api), sent as api_key= for keyed rate limits. Leave blank for anonymous access.",
      "sensitive": true,
      "default": ""
    },
    "OPENALEX_MAILTO": {
      "type": "string",
      "title": "OpenAlex Mailto",
      "description": "Optional email sent as mailto= to identify yourself to OpenAlex (the polite pool). Separate from the API key.",
      "default": ""
    },
    "OPENALEX_BASE_URL": {
      "type": "string",
      "title": "OpenAlex Base URL",
      "description": "OpenAlex API base URL.",
      "default": "https://api.openalex.org"
    },
    "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": {
      "type": "string",
      "title": "Log Level",
      "description": "Minimum log level (debug, info, notice, warning, error, crit, alert, emerg).",
      "default": "info"
    }
  },
  "mcpServers": {
    "openalex-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "OPENALEX_API_KEY": "${user_config.OPENALEX_API_KEY}",
        "OPENALEX_MAILTO": "${user_config.OPENALEX_MAILTO}",
        "OPENALEX_BASE_URL": "${user_config.OPENALEX_BASE_URL}",

Read the full file on GitHub · 56 lines

Contents

What it installs

The manifest is a name and a version. 33 skills, 1 MCP server travel with it, and installing the plugin installs all of them — 2,497 tokens a session between them. Each is measured on its own page, and each can be installed alone.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

4d ago Changed f573e3add989
22d ago Changed 30233e87f596
28d ago Changed e2aeff13e8e7
1mo ago Changed 1094e8ac4803
1mo ago Changed 5c9882a8b954
1mo ago Changed · +31 lines 16ffd22ebcbf
1mo ago Changed · +3 lines c969a61e4083
1mo ago Changed bd2618844794
1mo ago First seen · 22 lines scan A f7e37c312de1

Subscribe to this mod's changes

openalex-mcp-server is a plugin published in the GitHub repository cyanheads/openalex-mcp-server (16 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. Its token cost is not measured: this kind of file is read by the harness, not the model. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Research academic-search citation-analysis mcp mcp-server model-context-protocol openalex

cortex

Persistent local-first memory MCP server: remember/recall with thermodynamic heat and decay, knowledge graph, autonomous wiki, local SQLite store by default. Requires uv (uvx) on PATH; hooks-based auto-capture is Claude Code-only — on Gemini CLI memory is manual-tool-driven.

cdeust/Cortex · not measured

openalex-mcp-server

Getting it into your agent

Wrote this? Show the measurements

Grade A, and why

Nothing flagged

How it starts

What it installs

What this file has done since we first saw it

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