`search_works`

Pack: openalex · Endpoint: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openalex/mcp

Search scholarly/academic research across ALL fields — medicine, biology, neuroscience, genetics, chemistry, physics, materials science, computer science, economics, and beyond. Find recent studies, papers, and findings on any topic, gene, disease, drug, material, method, or theory by title, author, or keyword — e.g. “latest research on Kv7 potassium channels in epilepsy”, “recent studies on semaglutide”, “what has been published on X”. Returns title, authors, journal, publication year, citation count, and abstract.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`query`	string	yes	Search query (e.g., “transformer neural networks”)
`limit`	number	no	Number of results to return (1-25, default 10)

Example call

Arguments

{
  "query": "transformer neural networks"
}

curl

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openalex/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"search_works","arguments":{"query":"transformer neural networks"}}}'

TypeScript (@pipeworx/sdk)

import { Pipeworx } from '@pipeworx/sdk';
const pipeworx = new Pipeworx();

const result = await pipeworx.call('search_works', {
  "query": "transformer neural networks"
});

More examples

{
  "query": "CRISPR gene editing",
  "limit": 20
}

Response shape

Always returns: total, results

Field	Type	Description
`total`	number	Total number of works matching the query
`results`	array

Full JSON Schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "total": {
      "type": "number",
      "description": "Total number of works matching the query"
    },
    "results": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
          "id": {
            "type": "string",
            "description": "OpenAlex work ID"
          },
          "doi": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Digital Object Identifier"
          },
          "title": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Work title"
          },
          "publication_year": {
            "type": [
              "number",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Year of publication"
          },
          "type": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Work type (e.g., journal-article)"
          },
          "open_access": {
            "type": "boolean",
            "description": "Whether work is open access"
          },
          "oa_url": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Open access URL if available"
          },
          "cited_by_count": {
            "type": "number",
            "description": "Number of citations"
          },
          "journal": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Journal or publication venue name"
          },
          "authors": {
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
              "type": "string"
            },
            "description": "List of author names"
          },
          "concepts": {
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
              "type": "string"
            },
            "description": "Top research concepts/fields (up to 5)"
          },
          "abstract": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Work abstract text"
          }
        },
        "required": [
          "id",
          "doi",
          "title",
          "publication_year",
          "type",
          "open_access",
          "oa_url",
          "cited_by_count",
          "journal",
          "authors",
          "concepts",
          "abstract"
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "total",
    "results"
  ]
}

Connect

Add this to your MCP client config, or use one-click install buttons:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openalex": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openalex/mcp"
    }
  }
}

See Getting Started for client-specific install steps.

search_works