Claude Code

This guide shows how to register ScholarMCP in Claude Code. Use the Claude CLI first, then fall back to manual config only if the CLI flow fails.

Official references:

Anthropic documents the CLI setup flow as claude mcp add [options] <name> -- <command> [args...]. The ScholarMCP examples below follow that pattern directly.

What Claude Code Supports

user-scoped MCP server registration with claude mcp add
project-local fallback config with .mcp.json
local stdio servers, which is the recommended ScholarMCP transport mode

Install or Verify the Claude CLI

Install Claude Code if needed, then verify the MCP subcommand exists:

claude --version
claude mcp --help

Add ScholarMCP with the Claude CLI

Using the published npm package:

claude mcp add -s user \
  --transport stdio \
  -e SCHOLAR_MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio \
  -e SCHOLAR_REQUEST_DELAY_MS=350 \
  -e RESEARCH_ALLOW_REMOTE_PDFS=true \
  -e RESEARCH_ALLOW_LOCAL_PDFS=true \
  scholar_mcp -- npx -y scholar-mcp --transport=stdio

Using a globally installed scholar-mcp binary:

claude mcp add -s user \
  --transport stdio \
  -e SCHOLAR_MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio \
  -e SCHOLAR_REQUEST_DELAY_MS=350 \
  -e RESEARCH_ALLOW_REMOTE_PDFS=true \
  -e RESEARCH_ALLOW_LOCAL_PDFS=true \
  scholar_mcp -- scholar-mcp --transport=stdio

Important: keep the -- separator before the launch command. Claude’s CLI uses that separator to stop parsing Claude flags and pass the rest to the MCP server command.

Verify the Registration

Check the stored entry:

claude mcp get scholar_mcp

You should see a stdio server entry with the ScholarMCP command and the environment variables you passed at registration time.

Manual Fallback If `claude mcp add` Fails

If the CLI rejects your arguments or writes incomplete config, add a user-scoped entry in ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scholar_mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "scholar-mcp", "--transport=stdio"],
      "env": {
        "SCHOLAR_MCP_TRANSPORT": "stdio",
        "SCHOLAR_REQUEST_DELAY_MS": "350",
        "RESEARCH_ALLOW_REMOTE_PDFS": "true",
        "RESEARCH_ALLOW_LOCAL_PDFS": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

If you want the config to live only in the current repo, use the same mcpServers object in a project-local .mcp.json file instead of ~/.claude.json.

After editing either file, restart Claude Code and run:

claude mcp list

If Claude still fails to load the server, check /reference/troubleshooting/.

Run from Repo Instead of npm

If you are developing ScholarMCP from source, run it from the repository root:

pnpm --filter scholar-mcp dev:stdio