DBLP MCP server for AI agents

The MCP-DBLP server integrates the DBLP (Digital Bibliography & Library Project) API with Large Language Models through the Model Context Protocol. This server enables AI models to search academic publications, process citations, generate BibTeX entries, and export bibliographic information directly from the DBLP database.

Installation

System Requirements

Python 3.11+
uv

Setup Instructions

Install an MCP-compatible client (such as the Claude Desktop app)

Install the MCP-DBLP server:

git clone https://github.com/username/mcp-dblp.git
cd mcp-dblp
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate 
uv pip install -e .

Create the configuration file:

For macOS/Linux:

~/Library/Application/Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

For Windows:

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following content to the configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-dblp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/absolute/path/to/mcp-dblp/",
        "run",
        "mcp-dblp",
        "--exportdir",
        "/absolute/path/to/bibtex/export/folder/"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Note: On Windows, use double backslashes: C:\\absolute\\path\\to\\mcp-dblp

Using MCP-DBLP

Available Tools

The server provides several tools for working with academic publications:

search: Search DBLP for publications using boolean queries
fuzzy_title_search: Search publications with fuzzy title matching
get_author_publications: Retrieve publications for a specific author
get_venue_info: Get detailed information about a publication venue
calculate_statistics: Generate statistics from publication results
export_bibtex: Export BibTeX entries directly from DBLP to files

Tool Details

search

{
  "query": "machine learning and explainability",
  "max_results": 10,
  "year_from": 2020,
  "year_to": 2023,
  "venue_filter": "iclr",
  "include_bibtex": true
}

fuzzy_title_search

{
  "title": "Symbolic approach to explaining bayesian network",
  "similarity_threshold": 0.8,
  "max_results": 5,
  "year_from": 2018,
  "year_to": 2022,
  "venue_filter": "ijcai",
  "include_bibtex": true
}

get_author_publications

{
  "author_name": "Adnan Darwiche",
  "similarity_threshold": 0.9,
  "max_results": 10,
  "include_bibtex": true
}

get_venue_info

{
  "venue_name": "ICLR"
}

calculate_statistics

{
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "Example Paper 1",
      "authors": ["Author A", "Author B"],
      "venue": "ICLR",
      "year": 2021
    },
    {
      "title": "Example Paper 2",
      "authors": ["Author C", "Author D"],
      "venue": "AAAI",
      "year": 2022
    }
  ]
}

export_bibtex

{
  "links": "<a href=https://dblp.org/rec/journals/example.bib>Smith2023</a>"
}

Example Workflow

Start with a text containing citations:

Our exploration focuses on two types of explanation problems, abductive and contrastive, in local and global contexts (Marques-Silva 2023). Abductive explanations (Ignatiev, Narodytska, and Marques-Silva 2019), corresponding to prime-implicant explanations (Shih, Choi, and Darwiche 2018) and sufficient reason explanations (Darwiche and Ji 2022), clarify specific decision-making instances.

The server processes citations and returns the text with standardized citation keys:

Our exploration focuses on two types of explanation problems, abductive and contrastive, in local and global contexts \cite{MarquesSilvaI23}. Abductive explanations \cite{IgnatievNM19}, corresponding to prime-implicant explanations \cite{ShihCD18} and sufficient reason explanations \cite{DarwicheJ22}, clarify specific decision-making instances.

BibTeX entries are exported to a file:

All references have been successfully exported to a BibTeX file at: /absolute/path/to/bibtex/20250305_231431.bib

Direct BibTeX Export

The export_bibtex tool retrieves BibTeX entries directly from DBLP, bypassing LLM processing for maximum accuracy. The entries are saved to a timestamped .bib file in the specified export directory.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "mcp-dblp" '{"command":"uv","args":["--directory","/absolute/path/to/mcp-dblp/","run","mcp-dblp","--exportdir","/absolute/path/to/bibtex/export/folder/"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-dblp": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "/absolute/path/to/mcp-dblp/",
                "run",
                "mcp-dblp",
                "--exportdir",
                "/absolute/path/to/bibtex/export/folder/"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

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

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-dblp": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "/absolute/path/to/mcp-dblp/",
                "run",
                "mcp-dblp",
                "--exportdir",
                "/absolute/path/to/bibtex/export/folder/"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect