OpenAlex

live Science

Search scholarly works, authors, institutions, and academic concepts via the OpenAlex API

4 tools
0ms auth
free tier 50 calls/day

Tools

search_works required: query

Search scholarly works (papers, books, datasets) in the OpenAlex index. Returns title, authors, journal, year, citation count, and abstract.

Parameters
Name Type Description
query req string Search query (e.g., "transformer neural networks")
limit opt number Number of results to return (1-25, default 10)
▶ Try it
search_authors required: query

Search researchers and authors by name in OpenAlex. Returns display name, ORCID, institution, works count, and citation count.

Parameters
Name Type Description
query req string Author name to search for (e.g., "Yoshua Bengio")
limit opt number Number of results to return (1-25, default 10)
▶ Try it
search_institutions required: query

Search academic institutions (universities, research labs) by name in OpenAlex. Returns name, country, type, works count, and top concepts.

Parameters
Name Type Description
query req string Institution name to search for (e.g., "MIT")
limit opt number Number of results to return (1-25, default 10)
▶ Try it
get_concept required: query

Look up an academic concept or field of study by name. Returns description, works count, related concepts, and ancestor concepts in the hierarchy.

Parameters
Name Type Description
query req string Concept name to look up (e.g., "deep learning")
▶ Try it

Test with curl

The gateway speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP POST. You can test any pack directly from the terminal.

List available tools
bash 
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openalex/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'
Call a tool
bash 
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openalex/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"search_works","arguments":{"query": "hello"}}}'

Use with the SDK

Install @pipeworx/sdk to call tools from any TypeScript/Node project.

TypeScript 
import { Pipeworx } from '@pipeworx/sdk';
const px = new Pipeworx();
const result = await px.call("search_works", {"query":"example"});
ask_pipeworx 
// Or ask in plain English:
const answer = await px.ask("search scholarly works, authors, institutions, and academic concepts via the openalex api");