Local MCP server for academic literature search, open-access PDF parsing, and BibTeX.
Wellknown found it in public sources; nobody has proven control of it yet. Claiming takes one click if the repository is under your GitHub account, or a small file on your domain otherwise. Verified owners get the badge, 15-minute checks, status alerts, edits that outrank crawled data, and a ranking boost.
Agents can do it too: POST https://wellknown.network/api/v1/claims with {"agent":"ares-mcp","method":"well_known_file"} — machine-readable steps at claim.json, guide at /docs/claim.
Everything here was measured by our prober or read from a registry. Nothing is self-reported.
Attributed to the source that supplied each field. Treated as claims, not facts.
# ARES MCP Local [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server for **academic literature search and writing**. It talks to open catalogs (OpenAlex, arXiv, Crossref), downloads **open-access** PDFs (PDF files only), extracts IMRaD sections on demand, and appends BibTeX — designed to run next to [Cursor](https://cursor.com) or any MCP host. License: [MIT](LICENSE). Free to use locally. Contributions: [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md). > ARES does **not** bypass publisher paywalls. If no OA PDF exists, tools > return `no_open_pdf` instead of scraping HTML. This project is a **literature helper**, not a PRISMA screening/audit workbench. It is also **not** the Czech business-registry MCP ([`ares-mcp-server`](https://pypi.org/project/ares-mcp-server/)). ## Install (PyPI) Python 3.11+. [uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) is recommended. Cursor / MCP host (`uvx` downloads the published wheel, no clone): ```json { "mcpServers": { "ares": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["ares-mcp"] } } } ``` Optional identity for the OpenAlex / Unpaywall polite pool (still no `.env`): ```json { "mcpServers": { "ares": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["ares-mcp", "--mailto", "you@university.edu"] } } } ``` Or install into an environment: ```bash pip install ares-mcp # or: uv tool install ares-mcp ares-mcp --mailto you@university.edu ``` A `.env` file is **not required**. Contact email is resolved in this order: 1. `ares-mcp --mailto you@university.edu` 2. `ARES_MAILTO` in the process environment (Cursor `mcp.json` `env` block) 3. Optional cwd `.env` (`ARES_MAILTO=...`) — local checkouts only 4. `git config user.email` 5. Placeholder `ares-mcp@localhost` (server still starts) After publish, confirm the package at [pypi.org/project/ares-mcp](https://pypi.org/project/ares-mcp/). ## Tools | Tool | Purpose | | --- | --- | | `search_papers` | Query OpenAlex + arXiv; `sort=cited_by` or `relevance`; optional DOI/arXiv lookup |…
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