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

1. Find your Claude Desktop config file:

   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add the server configuration:

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

3. 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

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. 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

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Made with ❤️ for the cryptography research community