Paper Finder in VS Code

Questions it answers

Find research papers on a topic, search arXiv preprints, and get a paper's abstract and free full-text link from its DOI, PubMed id or arXiv id.

Ask "find recent open-access papers on retrieval-augmented generation evaluation", "search arXiv for speculative decoding papers from this year" or "get the abstract and open-access link for DOI 10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2".

It reads three public indexes: Europe PMC (life sciences and biomedicine, with PubMed and PubMed Central), Crossref (publisher records from all fields) and arXiv (preprints in physics, mathematics, computer science and more). A topic search asks Europe PMC and Crossref together and returns one merged list, each paper with its authors, year, venue, DOI, citation count and the index it came from.

A paper's open-access link is shown only when the index confirms a free full text: a Europe PMC or PubMed Central copy, an arXiv PDF, or a Crossref record that lists a Creative Commons or public-domain license. A missing link means the index does not confirm one, not that none exists.

It does not check whether a paper was retracted and does not verify reference lists: use the Citation Checker plugin for that. It lists papers and abstracts only. It does not read or summarize full texts, and it gives no medical advice.

It stores nothing about you: answers are cached for a few hours and the only lasting record is a daily count of calls per tool.

What it can do

• Searches Europe PMC and Crossref together for papers on a topic, with an optional start year and an open-access filter
• Searches arXiv preprints by topic, with optional category, start year and newest-first order
• Returns authors, year, venue, DOI, citation count and the index each paper came from
• Shows a free full-text link only when the index confirms one, with its license when stated
• Gets one paper's abstract by DOI, PubMed id or arXiv id
• Names the sources and the date they were read in every answer

Tools

• search_papers, Search papers. Use this when the user wants papers on a topic, such as "find recent open-access papers on retrieval-augmented generation evaluation" or "systematic reviews on intermittent fasting". Pass topic words, and optionally from_year, open_access_only and a limit of up to 10. Asks Europe PMC and Crossref together and returns one merged list with each paper's authors, year, venue, DOI, citation count, free full-text link when the index confirms one, and the index it came from. Does not search arXiv: use search_arxiv for preprints. Does not check retractions or reference lists.
• search_arxiv, Search arXiv. Use this when the user wants preprints from arXiv, such as "search arXiv for speculative decoding" or "newest cs.CL papers on tokenization". Pass topic words, and optionally an arXiv category such as cs.CL, from_year, sort (relevance or newest) and a limit of up to 10. Returns each preprint's title, authors, year, the start of its abstract, its arXiv page and its PDF link. Preprints are not peer reviewed.
• get_paper, Get a paper. Use this when the user gives a DOI, PubMed id or arXiv id and wants the paper's abstract or a free full-text link, such as "get the abstract for DOI 10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2". Pass exactly one of doi, pmid or arxiv_id. Returns the title, authors, year, venue, the start of the abstract, the free full-text link and license when the index confirms them, and the index it came from. It does not say whether the paper was retracted or whether a reference is correct.

Add Paper Finder in VS Code

VS Code reads MCP servers from mcp.json and offers their tools to Copilot Chat in Agent mode. A workspace file at .vscode/mcp.json applies to that project. For every workspace, run MCP: Open User Configuration from the Command Palette and add the same entry there. These steps were checked against the VS Code MCP servers guide on 2026-10-09.

Create or edit the file so it contains this server. VS Code uses a top-level servers object, not mcpServers. Merge it with servers you already have.

{
  "servers": {
    "papers": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://papers.openkrill.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

No command, no headers and no input variables for a key: Paper Finder answers without a login. Save the file and select Start above the entry. VS Code asks once whether you trust the server: confirm it. Run MCP: List Servers to check that Paper Finder is running. You should see search_papers, search_arxiv, get_paper.

Open the Chat view, choose Agent mode and ask: Find recent open-access papers on retrieval-augmented generation evaluation The Configure Tools button in the chat input lists the tools of each server, and VS Code may ask you to confirm the first call. The server is public and read-only. It sees only the arguments of each call, so do not paste secrets into the question.

Command line users can add it to the user profile in one step with code --add-mcp and the same name, type and url as JSON. The portable .mcp.json at the project root also works in VS Code, with mcpServers as its top-level key. An organization can turn MCP off through Copilot policy: if the MCP commands are missing, ask the admin.

If it does not work

A call checked on 2026-10-17

This DOI is the paper in the plugin's starter prompts. A missing full-text link is not proof that no free copy exists. The request below was posted to https://papers.openkrill.app/mcp as tools/call. HTTP 200. Source: the Paper Finder server, read 2026-10-17.

{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "get_paper",
    "arguments": {
      "doi": "10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2"
    }
  }
}

• status. ok
• asOf. 2026-10-16
• source. Europe PMC (https://europepmc.org)
• notice. These are records from public indexes, not endorsements. To check whether a paper was retracted or to verify a reference list, use the Citation Checker plugin.

Repeat the call yourself if you need a newer reading. Cached answers expire. A rate limit is not a result: wait and try again. Nothing in the call is a ranking, a filing, or advice.

Using it in production

Nothing to install and nothing to run: no package, no Python or Node.js version and no environment variable. Paper Finder runs on our servers, and your client only needs the URL https://papers.openkrill.app/mcp.

Use it in other apps

• Paper Finder in ChatGPT
• Paper Finder in Claude
• Paper Finder in Cursor
• Paper Finder in Pi

Roles that use Paper Finder

• Researcher guide

Frequently asked questions

Words on this page

• MCP (Model Context Protocol) definition
• Streamable HTTP transport definition
• Tool primitive definition
• Rate limit policy definition

Source: plugin listing for papers in this repository, and a live tools/call on 2026-10-17. As of 2026-10-17.