search_papersLABSCO SUMMARY
The physics literature, addressable by identifier.
Search, citations, author metrics and BibTeX come from one place, so a literature pass ends with references you can paste instead of a list of links to chase.
What it is
An MCP server over INSPIRE-HEP, the high-energy physics literature database. Papers are addressable by Inspire ID, arXiv ID or DOI, and the citation graph, author metrics, figures and formatted references all come from that same record.
What you get
- Papers searched by topic, author, collaboration or free text
- Full metadata for a paper by Inspire ID, arXiv ID or DOI
- An author's publications together with their citation metrics
- The citation graph in both directions — who cites a paper, and what it cites
- Publications filtered to a collaboration such as ATLAS, CMS or LHCb
- Figures and their download URLs for a paper
- Reference lists as BibTeX, LaTeX or JSON, and a single BibTeX entry by DOI
Requirements
Python — run it with uvx inspirehep-mcp, or pip install inspirehep-mcp. No account and no key: INSPIRE-HEP is public.
Setup effort
One command — uvx inspirehep-mcp
USE CASES
01
Starting a literature review
Search by topic or free text, then read full metadata on the papers worth keeping.
02
Working out what a result rests on
Walk the citation graph outward from a paper in either direction.
03
Assessing an author before a collaboration
Pull the publication list and the citation metrics together.
04
Following one experiment's output
Filter to a collaboration such as ATLAS, CMS or LHCb.
05
Finishing the bibliography
Generate the reference list as BibTeX, LaTeX or JSON, or fetch a single entry by DOI.
06
Getting the figure, not a description of it
Retrieve a paper's figures with their download URLs.
9 tools
Listed in project docs. Your client may show a different list.
get_paper_detailsget_author_papersget_citationssearch_by_collaborationget_paper_figuresget_referencesget_bibtexserver_statsBEFORE YOU INSTALL
What to know first
Tools you get
9 tools named in the project's documentation.
Requires
uvx on PATH
Where it runs
All 5 documented clients run the server on your machine.
INSTALLATION
Connect your client
Server setup
TERMINAL
uvx inspirehep-mcpMCP Clients
Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Gemini CLI
JSON
{
"mcpServers": {
"inspirehep": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"inspirehep-mcp"
]
}
}
}
