IACR ePrint Archive MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to the IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive, enabling AI assistants to search and retrieve cryptographic research papers.

✨ Features

🔍 Smart Search: Search papers by title, abstract, author, or keywords (RSS-based filtering)
📄 Paper Details: Get comprehensive information about specific papers
📰 Recent Papers: Retrieve the latest published papers from RSS feed
🔗 Direct Links: Get web page and PDF URLs for papers
📋 Download Info: Get download information for paper PDFs
🔒 Privacy Focused: No cookies, no tracking, respects ePrint Archive guidelines

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Option 1: Direct Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/eprint-mcp-server.git
cd eprint-mcp-server

# Install dependencies and build
npm install
npm run build

Option 2: Using npx (Coming Soon)

npx eprint-mcp-server

Claude Desktop Setup

Find your Claude Desktop config file:
- macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
- Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add the server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "eprint": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/eprint-mcp-server/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop completely (⌘+Q then reopen)

📖 Usage Examples

Search Papers

Find papers about "zero knowledge proofs"

Get Recent Papers

Show me the 10 most recent cryptography papers

Get Paper Details

Tell me about paper 2025/123

Find by Author

Find papers by Goldreich from 2024

🛠️ Development

Prerequisites

Node.js 18.0.0 or higher
npm or yarn

Setup

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/eprint-mcp-server.git
cd eprint-mcp-server
npm install

Development Commands

# Development with hot reload
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

# Run tests
npm test

# Type checking
npm run type-check

Project Structure

eprint-mcp-server/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts          # Main MCP server
│   ├── eprintClient.ts   # ePrint Archive API client
│   └── types.ts          # TypeScript type definitions
├── dist/                 # Compiled JavaScript output
├── tests/               # Test files
├── package.json
└── README.md

🔧 Configuration

Environment Variables

DEBUG: Set to 1 to enable debug logging
MAX_RESULTS: Maximum number of search results (default: 100)

MCP Server Options

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "eprint": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["./dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "DEBUG": "0",
        "MAX_RESULTS": "50"
      }
    }
  }
}

📚 Available Tools

Tool	Description	Parameters
`search_papers`	Search for papers	`query`, `maxResults`, `author`, `dateFrom`, `dateTo`
`get_paper`	Get paper details	`paperId`
`get_recent_papers`	Get recent papers	`limit`
`download_paper`	Get download info	`paperId`, `outputPath`
`get_paper_url`	Get paper URLs	`paperId`

🔍 Search Limitations

Currently, the ePrint Archive's search API endpoint is not publicly available, so this server uses RSS feed filtering for search functionality. This means:

✅ Search works within recent papers (last ~100 papers from RSS)
⚠️ Historical search is limited
🔄 We're working on implementing full search capabilities

🤝 Contributing

Fork the repository
Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
Open a Pull Request

📄 License

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

🙏 Acknowledgments

IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive for providing open access to cryptographic research
Model Context Protocol for the MCP framework
The cryptographic research community

📞 Support

🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
💬 Discussions: GitHub Discussions
📧 Email: [email protected]

🔄 Changelog

v1.0.0 (2025-06-25)

✨ Initial release
🔍 RSS-based search functionality
📄 Paper details retrieval
📰 Recent papers listing
🔗 Direct URL generation

Made with ❤️ for the cryptography research community

IACR ePrint Archive