InspireHEP MCP Server

An MCP server that integrates InspireHEP high-energy physics literature with LLMs. Search papers, explore citations, retrieve author metrics, and generate formatted references.

Installation

# Using pip
pip install inspirehep-mcp

# Or run directly with uvx (no install needed)
uvx inspirehep-mcp

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/MohamedElashri/inspirehep-mcp.git
cd inspirehep-mcp
uv sync
uv run inspirehep-mcp

Integration

Claude Desktop / Cursor / Windsurf

Add to your MCP client config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "inspirehep": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["inspirehep-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Option A: Using the CLI

# Global scope (available across all projects)
claude mcp add --scope user inspirehep -- uvx inspirehep-mcp

# Project scope (shared via .mcp.json, checked into source control)
claude mcp add --scope project inspirehep -- uvx inspirehep-mcp

Option B: Manual configuration

For global scope, add to ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "inspirehep": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["inspirehep-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

For project scope, create .mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "inspirehep": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["inspirehep-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Gemini CLI

Option A: Using the CLI

# Project scope (default)
gemini mcp add inspirehep uvx inspirehep-mcp

# User/global scope
gemini mcp add -s user inspirehep uvx inspirehep-mcp

Option B: Manual configuration

Add to ~/.gemini/settings.json (user scope) or .gemini/settings.json (project scope):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "inspirehep": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["inspirehep-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

Tool	Description
`search_papers`	Search papers by topic, author, collaboration, or free text
`get_paper_details`	Get full metadata for a paper by Inspire ID, arXiv ID, or DOI
`get_author_papers`	Retrieve an author's publications and citation metrics
`get_citations`	Explore citation graph — who cites a paper, or what it cites
`search_by_collaboration`	Find publications from ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, etc.
`get_paper_figures`	Retrieve figures and download URLs for a paper
`get_references`	Generate BibTeX, LaTeX, or JSON reference lists
`get_bibtex`	Retrieve BibTeX citation entry by DOI, arXiv ID, or Inspire ID
`server_stats`	Monitor cache hit rates and API performance

Configuration

All settings via environment variables (prefix INSPIREHEP_):

Variable	Default	Description
`INSPIREHEP_REQUESTS_PER_SECOND`	`1.5`	API rate limit
`INSPIREHEP_CACHE_TTL`	`86400`	Cache TTL in seconds (24h)
`INSPIREHEP_CACHE_MAX_SIZE`	`512`	Max cached entries
`INSPIREHEP_CACHE_PERSISTENT`	`false`	Enable SQLite persistent cache
`INSPIREHEP_CACHE_DB_PATH`	`inspirehep_cache.db`	SQLite cache file path
`INSPIREHEP_API_TIMEOUT`	`30`	HTTP request timeout (seconds)
`INSPIREHEP_LOG_LEVEL`	`INFO`	Logging level

Development

# Run tests
uv run pytest tests/ -v

# Run with coverage
uv run pytest tests/ --cov=inspirehep_mcp --cov-report=term-missing

# Unit tests only (no network)
uv run pytest tests/test_utils.py tests/test_cache.py tests/test_errors.py tests/test_config.py

LICENCE

This project is licensed under the AGPL-3.0 License - see the LICENSE file for details.