PubScope MCP Server

Connect your AI assistant directly to PubScope's journal intelligence. The PubScope MCP (Model Context Protocol) server gives Claude, Cursor, VS Code and any other MCP-compatible client live access to 46,000+ verified journals — trust scores, quartiles, indexing status and reference verification — instead of guessing from training data.

Endpoint

https://pubscope.org/api/mcp

Streamable HTTP · API key optional · free within fair-use limits · GitHub

With and without a key

The server answers without any credential, and that answer is a partial one. Journal identity, publisher, indexing status (Web of Science, Scopus, DOAJ), SJR quartile and scope are always returned. Trust Score, Journal Impact Factor, APC amount, acceptance rate and measured submission-to-publication time are returned only to an identified caller, and arrive as null otherwise.

A key is free. Create an account at pubscope.org/login, copy the key from your account page, and send it as an X-Api-Key header on the connection. Clients that support custom headers can set it directly; with mcp-remote pass --header X-Api-Key:YOUR_KEY.

Available tools

Tool	Arguments	What it does
`search_journals`	query, quartile?, open_access_only?, max_results?	Search the catalogue of 46,000+ journals by title, ISSN or topic. Returns SJR quartile, indexing (Scopus / Web of Science / DOAJ) and open-access status for any caller; trust score and APC with a key.
`get_journal`	issn	Full profile of one journal by ISSN — publisher, indexing credentials, quartile, scope and integrity flags for any caller; trust score breakdown, impact factor, APC and measured publication time with a key.
`compare_journals`	issns (2–4)	Side-by-side comparison of 2–4 journals: quartile and indexing for any caller, trust score and cost with a key.
`check_citations`	references	Paste a reference list; each citation is verified against Crossref, OpenAlex, DataCite, Semantic Scholar, arXiv, PubMed and DBLP, plus Retraction Watch — flags fabricated, unresolvable and retracted references. One check per day without an account.

Claude (web & desktop)

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste the endpoint URL. Leave the OAuth fields empty: this server does not use OAuth.

https://pubscope.org/api/mcp

Claude Code (CLI)

claude mcp add --transport http pubscope https://pubscope.org/api/mcp

Cursor

Settings → MCP → Add new MCP server, or add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubscope": {
      "url": "https://pubscope.org/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

code --add-mcp '{"name":"pubscope","type":"http","url":"https://pubscope.org/api/mcp"}'

Any other MCP client

Clients that only speak stdio can bridge to the remote server with mcp-remote:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubscope": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://pubscope.org/api/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Things to try

“Find Q1 open-access journals on medical image segmentation and compare the top three.”
“Is Medical Image Analysis indexed in Web of Science? What's its trust score?”
“Here's my reference list — check every citation for fabrication and retractions.”
“Compare 1361-8415 and 1533-7928 on cost and indexing.”

Fair use & data

The server is free and unauthenticated, with per-IP rate limits to keep it available for everyone. Every fact it returns comes from the same verifiable third-party sources documented on our methodology page — Scimago (SJR), DOAJ, Web of Science membership records, OpenAlex, Crossref and the Retraction Watch database. Nothing is fabricated, and absence from an index is never presented as a risk verdict. For higher-volume or commercial access, get in touch.