Paperpal

🚀 paperpal

An MCP extension that helps you search for and write literature reviews.

Check out the conversation with Claude to see what it can do for you.

🚀 Quick Start

There are various ways to interact with the MCP server.

Using Claude Desktop App

If this is your first time running Claude Desktop App with the MCP server, refer to https://modelcontextprotocol.io/quickstart/user.

First, clone this repository locally:

git clone https://github.com/jerpint/paperpal

Next, add the extension to your application. Open the configuration file (on macOS, it should be ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json) and add the following to the extensions section.

For example, on MacOS:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paperpal": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/Users/<username>/paperpal",
        "run",
        "paperpal.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Restart your Claude Desktop App, and you should see the extension.

Using Cursor

If this is your first time running Cursor with the MCP server, refer to https://docs.cursor.com/context/model-context-protocol#remote-development.

First, clone this repository locally:

git clone https://github.com/jerpint/paperpal

Create a .cursor/mcp.json file in the project root directory and add the following:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paperpal": {
      "command": "/Users/jeremypinto/.cargo/bin/uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/Users/jeremypinto/paperpal",
        "run",
        "paperpal.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

✨ Features

paperpal provides your LLM with an interface to access arxiv and Hugging Face papers. You can have natural conversations with your favorite LLM (such as Claude) to assist you with the following tasks:

• Discuss papers
• Find new papers
• Organize ideas for literature reviews
• And more

Of course, the functionality of this tool depends on the quality of its components. LLMs may still generate hallucinations, and semantic search is far from perfect.