Manual setup required. The maintainer's config contains paths only you know - edit the placeholders below before adding it to Claude Code.
1
Prepare the server locally
Run this once before adding it to Claude Code.
npm install
npm run build2
Register it in Claude Code
claude mcp add -e "IEEE_API_KEY=${IEEE_API_KEY}" ieee-xplore -- node /path/to/ieee-mcp/dist/index.jsReplace any placeholder paths in the command with the real path on your machine.
Required:
IEEE_API_KEY+ 1 optional3
Make your agent remember this setup
ieee-xplore's config, env vars, and the gotchas you hit — recalled in every future Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex session.
npx conare@latestFree · one command · indexes the sessions already on disk. Set up in the browser instead →
What it does
- Full-text search with Boolean operators and metadata filtering
- Retrieval of verbose paper metadata via DOI or article number
- Access to citation counts for both papers and patents
- Support for author-specific and publication-specific queries
- Full-text document retrieval for Open Access or authenticated users
Tools 6
search_papersFull-text search with Boolean operators and filters (author, year, content type, etc.)get_paper_detailsGet verbose metadata for a paper by article number or DOIget_paper_citationsGet citation counts (papers + patents) for a paperget_full_textRetrieve full text (Open Access or with auth token)search_by_authorSearch papers by author namesearch_by_publicationSearch papers within a journal or conferenceEnvironment Variables
IEEE_API_KEYrequiredAPI key from developer.ieee.orgIEEE_AUTH_TOKENAuth token for paywalled full-text accessTry it
→Search for recent papers on 'transformer architectures' published in 2024.
→Find the citation count for the paper with DOI 10.1109/TPAMI.2023.1234567.
→List all papers authored by Yann LeCun in the IEEE Xplore database.
→Retrieve the full text for the latest IEEE conference paper on quantum computing.
Original README from danieltyukov/ieee-mcp
IEEE Xplore MCP Server
MCP server that wraps the IEEE Xplore API, letting you search and retrieve academic papers from Claude Code.
Setup
- Get a free API key at https://developer.ieee.org
- Install and build:
npm install
npm run build
- Add to
~/.claude.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"ieee-xplore": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/home/danieltyukov/workspace/personal/ieee-mcp/dist/index.js"],
"env": {
"IEEE_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
}
}
}
}
Environment Variables
| Variable | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
IEEE_API_KEY |
Yes | API key from developer.ieee.org |
IEEE_AUTH_TOKEN |
No | Auth token for paywalled full-text access |
Tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
search_papers |
Full-text search with Boolean operators and filters (author, year, content type, etc.) |
get_paper_details |
Get verbose metadata for a paper by article number or DOI |
get_paper_citations |
Get citation counts (papers + patents) for a paper |
get_full_text |
Retrieve full text (Open Access or with auth token) |
search_by_author |
Search papers by author name |
search_by_publication |
Search papers within a journal or conference |
Rate Limits
The free IEEE API tier allows ~200 calls/day with up to 200 results per call.