PaperPal
About
Connects LLMs to academic research sources for semantic paper searches and detailed information retrieval from arXiv and Hugging Face, enabling literature reviews and research exploration
Details
- Author
- jerpint
- Repository
- jerpint/paperpal
- GitHub stars
- 5
- Downloads
- 233
- License
- MIT License
- Categories
- AI, Developer Tools, Search, Knowledge Base, Other
- Tags
- #web
Jump to
- Searches arXiv and Hugging Face papers
- Enables natural language discussion of papers
- Helps discover new research on a topic
- Aids in organising ideas for literature reviews
Setting up with Highlight
This MCP is not yet compatible with Highlight’s one-click setup. However, you can still use it with Highlight by following these steps:
- Download and install Highlight from highlightai.com/download
- Navigate to the plugins tab and select "Add Custom Plugin"
-
Configure the plugin with the settings below
Plugin Name
PaperPalCommand (node, npx, python, etc.)uvArguments-
Argument 1
--directory -
Argument 2
/Users/<username>/paperpal -
Argument 3
run -
Argument 4
paperpal.py
Please refer to the README for specific instructions on how to obtain API keys or other required environment variables.
-
Argument 1
- Enable "Start Automatically" if you want the plugin to start when Highlight launches
From the repository
There are many different ways with which you can interact with an MCP server.
Claude Desktop / Cursor
Paste into your MCP client config file to install this server.
{
"mcpServers": {
"paperpal": {
"cwd": null,
"env": {},
"args": [
"--directory",
"/Users/<username>/paperpal",
"run",
"paperpal.py"
],
"shell": false,
"command": "uv"
}
}
}Linux
{
"cwd": null,
"env": [],
"args": [
"--directory",
"/Users/jeremypinto/paperpal",
"run",
"paperpal.py"
],
"shell": false,
"command": "/Users/jeremypinto/.cargo/bin/uv"
}Macos
{
"cwd": null,
"env": [],
"args": [
"--directory",
"/Users/<username>/paperpal",
"run",
"paperpal.py"
],
"shell": false,
"command": "uv"
}Windows
{
"cwd": null,
"env": [],
"args": [
"--directory",
"/Users/jeremypinto/paperpal",
"run",
"paperpal.py"
],
"shell": false,
"command": "/Users/jeremypinto/.cargo/bin/uv"
}paperpal
MCP Extension to aid you in searching and writing literature reviews
> Check out this conversation with Claude to see what it can do
How it works
paperpal gives your LLMs access to arxiv and Hugging Face papers.
You can then have a natural conversation with your favourite LLMs (e.g. Claude) and have it guide you.
You can:
Discuss papers
Look for new papers
Organize ideas for liteature reviews
etc.
Of course, this tool is as good as the sum of its parts. LLMs can still hallucinate, and semantic search is never perfect.
Quickstart
There are many different ways with which you can interact with an MCP server.
Claude Desktop App
> If this is your first time using an MCP server for Claude Desktop App, see https://modelcontextprotocol.io/quickstart/user
First, clone this repository locally:
git clone https://github.com/jerpint/paperpal
Next, add the extension to your app. Open your configuration file (on macOS this should be ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json) and and add the following to the extension:
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 it appear.
Cursor
> If this is your first time using an MCP server for Cursor, see https://docs.cursor.com/context/model-context-protocol#remote-development
First, clone this repository locally:
git clone https://github.com/jerpint/paperpal
Add this to the root of the project in a .cursor/mcp.json file:
{
"mcpServers": {
"paperpal": {
"command": "/Users/jeremypinto/.cargo/bin/uv",
"args": [
"--directory",
"/Users/jeremypinto/paperpal",
"run",
"paperpal.py"
]
}
}
}
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