Openalex
NPM · @PIPEWORX/MCP-OPENALEX · 2 COMPONENTS
OpenAlex MCP — wraps the OpenAlex API (scholarly works, free, no auth)
Available components
Last scanned (4 hours ago)
Scores higher than 76% of npm servers
Category Education and Research
How this component scores in each security and reliability category. Every signal is checked automatically from public evidence about the published package, including repeated runs of it in an isolated sandbox, and we only credit what we can confirm. How we score → Why this is hard to score →
Supply Chain Security100
- No malware found by supply-chain analysis.Pass
- No known CVEs affecting this package version or its production dependencies.Pass
- No install/post-install scripts declared.Pass
- No production dependencies, so there is no dependency health to assess. View diagnostics → Pass
Provenance & Transparency97
- Source repository is publicly reachable at the declared URL. View diagnostics → Pass
- Cryptographically verified build provenance (signed, bound to pipeworx-io/mcp-openalex). View diagnostics → Pass
- Clear OSI-approved license (MIT).Pass
- Actively maintained (last published 1 days ago).Pass
- Disclosure check failed: no security disclosure policy was found in the source repository. See how to fix → Fail
Schema Quality & AI Usability70
- AI-judged instruction clarity (excellent).Pass
- Context-footprint check failed: tool/resource definitions use about 921 tokens (~153/item across 6 items; 6 tools + 0 resources), over budget; trim descriptions and params. See how to fix → Fail
- Usage-examples check failed: none of the tools include examples. See how to fix → Fail
Stability & Change Management23
- Stability observed for 7 of 30 days with no destabilising changes; credit accrues until the full window elapses.Partial
Tool Coverage100
- 100% of tools have a non-trivial description (not blank, and not just the tool's name).Pass
- 100% of tool parameters carry a description.Pass
Tool Safety100
- No prompt-injection markers were found in the server instructions, tool names or descriptions we captured.Pass
- We read all 6 captured tool definition(s), and no name or description among them implies an irreversible operation.Pass
- An AI judge read all 7 captured unit(s) of tool text and found none that tries to manipulate the model reading it.Pass
Capabilities100
- Implements a supported MCP spec version (2025-11-25); the latest is 2026-07-28.Pass
Every change we have recorded for this component, newest first. Security-relevant changes are always shown. ▲ marks a change for the better, ▼ a change for the worse; unmarked changes are neutral.
- 4 Nov 26 +16
- Malware scan: unverified → pass ▲ security
- 3 Nov 26 −13
- Malware scan: pass → unverified ▼ security
- Stability: unverified → 0.17 ▲ functional
- Package version: 0.2.0 → 0.2.1 functional
- 30 Oct 26 0
- Security disclosure: unverified → fail ▼ functional
- 29 Oct 26 80
First indexed and scored.
Diagnostic detail from the automated scan of this channel: what the scanner observed at each step, so you can see exactly where a check passed or failed. It is informational only and never changes the trust score.
Captured 5 Nov 2026 · Analysed npm/@pipeworx/mcp-openalex@0.2.1
Provenance Verified
A signed build attestation was found and verified, binding this exact artifact to the source repository it claims to come from.
| Result | Verified |
|---|---|
| Ecosystem | npm |
| Reason | Verified |
| Discovered via | Registry attestation endpoint |
| Source repo | pipeworx-io/mcp-openalex |
| Certificate issuer | https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com |
| Certificate SAN | https://github.com/pipeworx-io/mcp-openalex/.github/workflows/publish.yml@refs/heads/main |
| Rekor log index | 3679834170 |
| Predicate type | SLSA build provenance https://slsa.dev/provenance/v1 |
| Subject digest | sha512:0fb84a0ab63d91063f6eecff967a8d643d0cdeb265b2070ba434dab545f8b2ac02669ca085d19f9a9fe63b94dcebbf65d2ec804cf5fc6b16099434ca0 |
Background: How many MCP packages publish verified provenance →
Dependencies 0 packages
| Packages resolved | 0 |
|---|---|
| Tree resolution | Complete |
Background: SBOMs and build attestations, explained →
The tools this component advertises to a client, with an estimated token cost for each. Expand a tool to see its parameters and schema. The per-tool counts are indicative and are not scored directly; the schema's total context footprint is one signal in Schema Quality & AI Usability. A tool's description is untrusted text the model reads on every call, which is what makes this list a security surface and not just an inventory: how tool poisoning works →
get_concept ~85
Look up research fields or topics by name. Returns concept description, publication count, related concepts, and parent concepts in the academic hierarchy.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| _apiKey | string | – | OpenAlex API key. Optional — Pipeworx supplies one; pass your own to bill your account instead. |
| query | string | yes | Concept name to look up (e.g., "deep learning") |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
get_journal_publishing_model ~203
Is a journal subscription, hybrid or fully open access? Look up a journal by ISSN (print or electronic, e.g. "0025-1461" or "1864-1547") and get its publisher, article-processing charge, whether the Directory of Open Access Journals lists it, and the open-access status mix of its recent articles (gold, diamond, hybrid, bronze, green, closed), with a derived model label: open_access, hybrid or subscription. The label is inferred from article-level evidence, not declared by the publisher.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| _apiKey | string | – | OpenAlex API key. Optional — Pipeworx supplies one; pass your own to bill your account instead. |
| issn | string | yes | Journal ISSN, print or electronic, e.g. "1864-1547" |
| years | number | – | Look-back window in years for the article mix (1-15, default 5) |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
get_scholarly_work ~176
Fetch a single scholarly work from OpenAlex by its OpenAlex ID (e.g. "W2741809807") or DOI (e.g. "10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2"). Returns the full record + reconstructed abstract and the works it CITES (referenced_works) — for backward citation-graph navigation. Use after search_works, or whenever you have a DOI/ID. (Named get_scholarly_work to avoid colliding with Crossref get_work.)
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| _apiKey | string | – | OpenAlex API key. Optional — Pipeworx supplies one; pass your own to bill your account instead. |
| id | string | yes | OpenAlex work ID ("W...") or a DOI ("10.xxxx/yyyy" or a full doi.org URL). |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
search_authors ~105
Find researchers by name or institution affiliation. Returns author name, ORCID, institution, publication count, and total citations.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| _apiKey | string | – | OpenAlex API key. Optional — Pipeworx supplies one; pass your own to bill your account instead. |
| limit | number | – | Number of results to return (1-25, default 10) |
| query | string | yes | Author name to search for (e.g., "Yoshua Bengio") |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
search_institutions ~112
Find academic institutions by name or location (e.g., country code 'US', 'GB'). Returns institution name, country, type, publication count, and research areas.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| _apiKey | string | – | OpenAlex API key. Optional — Pipeworx supplies one; pass your own to bill your account instead. |
| limit | number | – | Number of results to return (1-25, default 10) |
| query | string | yes | Institution name to search for (e.g., "MIT") |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
search_works ~188
Search scholarly/academic research across ALL fields — medicine, biology, neuroscience, genetics, chemistry, physics, materials science, computer science, economics, and beyond. Find recent studies, papers, and findings on any topic, gene, disease, drug, material, method, or theory by title, author, or keyword — e.g. "latest research on Kv7 potassium channels in epilepsy", "recent studies on semaglutide", "what has been published on X". Returns title, authors, journal, publication year, citation count, and abstract.
| Name | Type | Req | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| _apiKey | string | – | OpenAlex API key. Optional — Pipeworx supplies one; pass your own to bill your account instead. |
| limit | number | – | Number of results to return (1-25, default 10) |
| query | string | yes | Search query (e.g., "transformer neural networks") |
No output schema declared.
No examples provided.
How do I install the Openalex MCP server?
Openalex runs locally as an npm package, launched with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-openalex. Ready-made configuration for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Codex and 5 more is on this page, copied from each client's own documentation.
npm · @pipeworx/mcp-openalex
claude mcp add pipeworx-io-openalex -- npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-openalex
What is the Openalex MCP server?
Openalex is an MCP server listed in the public MCP registry as io.github.pipeworx-io/openalex. OpenAlex MCP, wraps the OpenAlex API (scholarly works, free, no auth). This page covers its npm package (@pipeworx/mcp-openalex).
Is the Openalex MCP server safe to use?
Openalex scores 83 out of 100 on VerifyMCP. We found no known CVEs affecting it as of 5 November 2026. It declares no install or post-install scripts. Its build provenance is signed and verified. That is a record of what we were able to check automatically, not an endorsement. The category breakdown on this page shows every signal behind the number, including the ones we could not confirm.
What tools does the Openalex MCP server expose?
Openalex exposes 6 tools: search_works, search_authors, search_institutions, get_concept, get_scholarly_work, get_journal_publishing_model. Their descriptions and schemas cost roughly 869 tokens of context every time the server is loaded.
Is the Openalex MCP server still maintained?
Openalex is still listed as active in the MCP registry. We last reached this channel on 5 November 2026. Those dates come from our own scans of the registry and the channel itself, not from anything the publisher announced.
What licence is the Openalex MCP server under?
Openalex declares the MIT licence, which is OSI-approved. That covers the source only, and says nothing about the cost of any service it calls.