perplexica_searchLABSCO SUMMARY
Your Perplexica instance, reachable from the assistant you already use.
The focus modes are the lever: academicSearch and wolframAlphaSearch behave very differently from a plain web search, and choosing one is a parameter rather than a prompt trick. Nothing answers until Perplexica itself is running — this is the bridge, not the search engine.
What it is
A small Python server that talks to a Perplexica installation you run yourself. Two tools; every answer comes from your instance rather than a hosted service.
What you get
- An AI-powered search in a chosen focus mode — perplexica_search
- The chat and embedding models your instance has available — perplexica_get_models
- Six focus modes: webSearch, academicSearch, writingAssistant, wolframAlphaSearch, youtubeSearch and redditSearch
- Streaming responses, and conversation history carried across searches
Requirements
A running Perplexica instance. Python 3.10 or newer; install with pip install git+https://github.com/armand0e/perplexica-mcp.git and run python -m perplexica_mcp. PERPLEXICA_BASE_URL points at the instance and defaults to http://localhost:3000.
Setup effort
One command — pip install git+https://github.com/armand0e/perplexica-mcp.git
USE CASES
01
Researching without leaving the conversation
A web search runs on your own instance and comes back in the same session, with the history carried across follow-up questions.
02
Looking for papers rather than pages
Academic focus mode changes what gets retrieved, so a research question does not return blog posts.
03
Answering something computational
Wolfram Alpha focus mode routes the maths to a solver rather than asking the model to do the arithmetic.
04
Checking what your instance can run
List the chat and embedding models configured on the instance before choosing which one a search should use.
2 tools
Listed in project docs. Your client may show a different list.
perplexica_get_modelsBEFORE YOU INSTALL
What to know first
Tools you get
2 tools named in the project's documentation. webSearch, academicSearch, writingAssistant, wolframAlphaSearch, youtubeSearch and redditSearch are values of perplexica_search's focusMode parameter, not separate tools.
Requires
Python 3.10+
Where it runs
The documented client runs the server on your machine.
INSTALLATION
Connect your client
Server setup
Setup
TERMINAL
git clone https://github.com/armand0e/perplexica-mcp.git
cd perplexica-mcp
pip install -e .pip
TERMINAL
pip install git+https://github.com/armand0e/perplexica-mcp.gitMCP Clients
Claude Desktop
CLAUDE DESKTOP · JSON
{
"mcpServers": {
"perplexica": {
"command": "python",
"args": [
"-m",
"perplexica_mcp"
],
"env": {
"PERPLEXICA_BASE_URL": "http://localhost:3000"
}
}
}
}
