Skills/PyPI/pvliesdonk-scholar-mcp

pvliesdonk-scholar-mcp@3.2.0

VERIFIED· not started

Publisher claims: "Scholarly papers, patents, books, standards and PDF conversion" Observed in sandbox: no network, touches nothing outside the project, writes no memory.

Registry PyPI (MCP server)Publisher pvliesdonk · publishing for 251 daysInstalls 1,444Last detonated 1 h ago
$claude mcp add pvliesdonk-scholar-mcp -- uvx pvliesdonk-scholar-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
GITHUB_TOKENSCHOLAR_GITHUB_TOKENConfiguration, not credentials: _GEN_CONFIG_BOOTSTRAPPED, _SEEDED_REPORT_BOOTSTRAPPED, GITHUB_ACTIONS, GITHUB_RUN_ATTEMPT, GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY, TEMPLATE_CONFORMANCE_BASE, VERSION_FROM, VERSION_TO
Where it talks to
no vendor host named in the codeAlso doi.org, epo.org, openlibrary.org, gofastmcp.com, nih.gov, openalex.org, worldcat.org, semanticscholar.org, astral.sh, espacenet.com, unpaywall.org, arxiv.org, githubusercontent.com, rfc-editor.org, loc.gov, etsi.org, commoncriteriaportal.org, europa.eu, crossref.org — 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, epo.org, openlibrary.org, gofastmcp.com, nih.gov, openalex.org, worldcat.org, semanticscholar.org, astral.sh, espacenet.com, unpaywall.org, arxiv.org, githubusercontent.com, rfc-editor.org, loc.gov, etsi.org, commoncriteriaportal.org, europa.eu, crossref.org as well as its own vendor. The guard injects GITHUB_TOKEN, SCHOLAR_GITHUB_TOKEN only into requests to the host you bind (and its subdomains) and refuses the rest.

$vet-skills run --net declared -- uvx pvliesdonk-scholar-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 2026-11-15 and scored it 85/100 (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
0.2sprocessdependency install exit 1 ·
0.2sclaimednot started: dependency install failed (exit 1); the server itself was not observed
0.2sprocessscript backend runs setup only
0.2sprocessno install scripts to re-run

Static findings

MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/check_self_review.py:33 · Python subprocess execution detectedreturn subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathsscripts/report_seeded_changes.py:54 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files".env.example",Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/check_template_conformance.py:428 · Python subprocess execution detectedlisting = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathsscripts/report_seeded_changes.py:56 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files"examples/*.env",Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathssrc/scholar_mcp/server.py:355 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files# because .env.example ships BASE_URL commented out and a refusal to startFix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/check_template_conformance.py:433 · Python subprocess execution detectedprefix = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/check_template_conformance.py:648 · Python subprocess execution detectedrefs = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/report_seeded_changes.py:90 · Python subprocess execution detectedproc = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
LOW
Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction filesscripts/migrate_agent_instructions.py:6 · Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction files · informational: not an instruction filecontent used to be; the project's real pre-update CLAUDE.md is still at gitFix: Remove the text that addresses the agent rather than the reader; describe behavior, do not instruct.
AST01
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/promote_release_notes.py:425 · Python subprocess execution detectedsubprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/check_template_conformance.py:466 · Python subprocess execution detectedproc = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/check_template_conformance.py:448 · Python subprocess execution detectedblob = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
LOW
Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction filesscripts/migrate_agent_instructions.py:141 · Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction files · informational: not an instruction fileactions.append("rewrote CLAUDE.md as the @AGENTS.md stub")Fix: Remove the text that addresses the agent rather than the reader; describe behavior, do not instruct.
AST01
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/migrate_agent_instructions.py:151 · Python subprocess execution detectedproc = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/stamp_manifests.py:279 · Python subprocess execution detectedsubprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/migrate_docs_nav.py:277 · Python subprocess execution detectedreturn subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
LOW
Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction filesscripts/migrate_agent_instructions.py:1 · Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction files · informational: not an instruction file"""Move a downstream from CLAUDE.md to AGENTS.md during `copier update`.Fix: Remove the text that addresses the agent rather than the reader; describe behavior, do not instruct.
AST01
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/package_milestones.py:39 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
LOW
Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction filespyproject.toml:310 · Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction files · informational: not an instruction file# The copier-update migration reads the pre-update CLAUDE.md with a fixed-argvFix: Remove the text that addresses the agent rather than the reader; describe behavior, do not instruct.
AST01
LOW
Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction filesscripts/migrate_agent_instructions.py:144 · Instructs the agent to modify its persistent memory or instruction files · informational: not an instruction file"CLAUDE.md content before this update is at `git show HEAD:CLAUDE.md`; "Fix: Remove the text that addresses the agent rather than the reader; describe behavior, do not instruct.
AST01
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedscripts/migrate_docs_pages.py:143 · Python subprocess execution detectedreturn subprocess.run(Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
File type combined with upload actionscripts/gen_config_surface.py:1639 · File type combined with upload action — agent may exfiltrate local data files"""One `server.json` ``environmentVariables`` entry, as a schema ``Input``.Fix: Remove the call, or declare the host in frontmatter and explain in the README what is sent and why.
AST07

Cost to the agent

Instructions loaded
≈57 tok
1 file · 81 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 pvliesdonk-scholar-mcp@3.2.0 as of 47 min ago. This is the package itself, not its dependencies.