Skills/PyPI/paper-tools-mcp

paper-tools-mcp@0.1.5

VERIFIED· not started

Publisher claims: "Standalone MCP server: deterministic paper identity resolution + PDF retrieval" Observed in sandbox: no network, touches nothing outside the project, writes no memory.

Registry PyPI (MCP server)Publisher zhangsh1416 · publishing for 171 daysInstalls 78Last detonated 3 h ago
$claude mcp add paper-tools-mcp -- uvx paper-tools-mcp
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Coverage

Not started: dependency install failed; the server itself was not observed.
Tested
the dependency install step · every file read, file written and host contacted by what ran
Not tested
server startup · the tool list · tool behavior

What this means for the label: Verified here covers what ran. The server's tools were not exercised with a real credential, so nothing about their behavior is asserted; the credential summary below says what to do with that.

Before you give it your token

It will ask for
ELSERVIER_API_KEYELSERVIER_INSTTOKENELSEVIER_API_KEYELSEVIER_INSTTOKENConfiguration, not credentials: DISPLAY, PAPER_TOOLS_EMAIL, PAPER_TOOLS_NO_BROWSER_COOKIES, PAPER_TOOLS_NONINTERACTIVE, WAYLAND_DISPLAY
Where it talks to
no vendor host named in the codeAlso doi.org, openalex.org, semanticscholar.org, crossref.org, unpaywall.org, arxiv.org, ssrn.com, openaccessbutton.org, sagepub.com, informs.org, wiley.com, elsevier.com — not the publisher's domain; check what for before connecting.
What the honeypot saw
no credential files read · no network
What we could not test
server startup · the tool list · tool behavior

Connect it with a scoped credential, under the guard, and read the third-party hosts first. The code names doi.org, openalex.org, semanticscholar.org, crossref.org, unpaywall.org, arxiv.org, ssrn.com, openaccessbutton.org, sagepub.com, informs.org, wiley.com, elsevier.com as well as its own vendor. The guard injects ELSERVIER_API_KEY, ELSERVIER_INSTTOKEN, ELSEVIER_API_KEY, ELSEVIER_INSTTOKEN only into requests to the host you bind (and its subdomains) and refuses the rest.

$vet-skills run --net declared -- uvx paper-tools-mcp

Never paste a credential into a chat, a ticket or a report, including ours. How the guard holds it.

Is [email protected] safe to install?

KillerSkills ran it in the KillerSkills honeypot sandbox (2 scenarios; not started: dependency install failed; the server itself was not observed) on 2026-11-14 and scored it 91/100 (Verified). In what ran, nothing we could detect went wrong: no undeclared network egress, no credential reads, no persistent instruction writes. What it does with a real credential was not observed; the static findings and the publisher carry the rest of the score. Summary: no network, touches nothing outside the project, writes no memory.

Behavior trace

Honeypot run · 0 s · 2 scenarios · 0 deviations
t+CategoryObserved action
0.0sprocessno install scripts in bundle
0.1sprocessdependency install exit 1 ·
0.1sclaimednot started: dependency install failed (exit 1); the server itself was not observed
0.1sprocessscript backend runs setup only
0.1sprocessno install scripts to re-run

Static findings

MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedpaper_tools/interactive.py:125 · Python subprocess execution detectedsubprocess.run([sys.executable, "-m", "patchright", "install", "chromium"],Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05

No other findings across 1,814 lines in 22 files.

Cost to the agent

Instructions loaded
≈57 tok
1 file · 22 in bundle
Tool list per prompt
≈0 tok
0 tools · 0 per tool
Handshake
no reply
launch to tools/list, stdio
Undocumented tools
0
description under 20 chars · avg 0

Tokens estimated at four characters each. The tool list is re-read by the agent on every turn, so it is the number to compare between servers that do the same job: ranked across the index.

Known vulnerabilities

No advisories in OSV for paper-tools-mcp@0.1.5 as of 3 h ago. This is the package itself, not its dependencies.