Research Master

Research Master

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for searching and downloading academic papers from multiple research sources.

[](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) [](https://www.rust-lang.org/) [](https://crates.io/crates/research-master) [](https://github.com/hongkongkiwi/research-master/releases)

Overview

Research Master is a comprehensive academic research server that provides unified access to 28 major research repositories and databases. It implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to integrate seamlessly with AI assistants like Claude Desktop, enabling powerful literature search, paper discovery, and citation analysis capabilities.

Quick Start

1. Install

macOS (Homebrew):

brew tap hongkongkiwi/research-master
brew install research-master

Other methods: See [Installation](docs/installation.md) for Linux packages, Docker, and building from source.

2. Configure Your MCP Client

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "research-master": {
      "command": "research-master",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

See [MCP Clients](docs/mcp-clients.md) for setup instructions for Claude Desktop, Zed, Cursor, Continue, and 15+ other clients.

3. Start Searching

Once configured, use natural language with your AI assistant:

Search for papers about "transformer architecture" from 2020 onwards
Download the paper 1706.03762 and find what papers cite it
Find papers by Geoffrey Hinton on deep learning

See [Tools](docs/tools.md) for all available MCP tools.

Features

• 28 Research Sources: arXiv, Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, PubMed, PMC, bioRxiv, and [more](docs/sources.md)
• Unified Search: Single query searches across all sources
• Smart Source Detection: Automatically identifies paper IDs (arXiv, PMC, DOI, etc.)
• PDF Download: Save papers to your local filesystem
• Citation Analysis: Find papers that cite or are cited by a paper
• Deduplication: Remove duplicate results across sources
• Rate Limiting: Configurable to avoid API throttling

See [Sources](docs/sources.md) for supported databases, API requirements, and rate limits.

Documentation

| Topic | Description | |-------|-------------| | [Installation](docs/installation.md) | Install via Homebrew, Docker, packages, or source | | [Sources](docs/sources.md) | Supported research databases, API keys, rate limits | | [Usage](docs/usage.md) | CLI commands and options | | [Tools](docs/tools.md) | Available MCP tools reference | | [MCP Clients](docs/mcp-clients.md) | Configuration for Claude Desktop, Zed, Cursor, etc. | | [Configuration](docs/configuration.md) | Environment variables and config file | | [Development](docs/development.md) | Project structure, adding new sources |

Common Commands

# Search for papers
research-master search "transformer architecture" --year 2020-

# Search by author
research-master author "Geoffrey Hinton"

# Download a paper
research-master download 2301.12345 --source arxiv --output ./papers

# Look up by DOI
research-master lookup 10.48550/arXiv.2301.12345

# Start MCP server
research-master mcp --stdio

# Show all environment variables
research-master --env

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Ways to Contribute

• Report bugs and issues
• Suggest new features
• Add new research sources
• Improve documentation
• Submit pull requests

See [Development](docs/development.md) for the project structure and how to add new sources.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Built with Rust
• Implements the Model Context Protocol
• Integrates with numerous academic research APIs and services

Contact

• GitHub: @hongkongkiwi
• Repository: https://github.com/hongkongkiwi/research-master

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: hongkongkiwi
• Source: hongkongkiwi/research-master
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.