# CrossRef MCP for AI Agents AI Agent Connect > CrossRef lets your AI agent tap into the world's largest registry of scholarly metadata. It handles DOI resolution, citation counts, and bibliographic details for over 140 million works across all scientific disciplines. Whether you're verifying a source, looking up a researcher's portfolio, or pulling metadata for a bibliography, this Connector connects your agent to the primary source for academic publishing data. ## Overview - **Category:** the-unthinkable - **Price:** Free - **Endpoint:** https://edge.vinkius.com/vk_preview_tB5OKe9b8ptvjN39Svca4u5g8tQNgsRExGVMuy2H/ai-agent-connect - **Tags:** scholarly-metadata, doi-resolution, academic-research, citation-tracking, bibliographic-data, search-api ## Description Imagine you're deep in a research project and need to verify if a specific paper actually exists or find out how many times it's been cited. Instead of opening dozens of tabs and hunting through various journal websites, you can just ask your agent to do the heavy lifting. This Connector gives your agent a direct line to the primary registry for scholarly metadata, covering almost every DOI ever assigned across all scientific publishers. You can pull back complete bibliographic details like author lists, publication years, and abstracts, or search for every single work published by a specific scientist across the entire globe. It turns your AI into a high-speed research assistant that can navigate the complexities of academic publishing without you having to manually hunt for links. By adding this to your setup on Vinkius, you're giving your agent the ability to act as a professional librarian. You can quickly build out bibliographies, check fact sources for science writing, or gather data for bibliometric analysis in seconds. It's about moving from the tedious work of searching for a needle in a haystack to having the needle handed to you by an agent that knows exactly where to look. You'll stop wasting time on manual data entry and start spending that time on the actual analysis. It handles the tedious parts of the academic workflow so you can focus on the ideas. ## Tools ### search_crossref Search the world's largest DOI registry for scholarly works across any scientific discipline using free-text queries. This is the best way to find relevant research across the entire scientific landscape. ### get_crossref_doi Get the full metadata for any scholarly work including the title, authors, journal, year, and abstract from its DOI. This lets you quickly grab all the facts about a paper in one step. ### search_crossref_author Find every publication by a specific researcher sorted by relevance with their total citation counts. This is useful for building a complete profile of a scientist's career. ## Prompt Examples **Prompt:** ``` Look up the paper with DOI 10.1038/nature12373 and show me all its details. ``` **Response:** ``` I found the following details for that DOI: **Title:** Sequence-specific antimicrobials using efficiently delivered RNA-guided nucleases **Authors:** David Bikard et al. **Journal:** Nature Biotechnology (2014) **Type:** Journal Article **Citations:** 682 **Abstract:** This pioneering paper explores using CRISPR-Cas9 for targeted antimicrobial applications. You can find the full text by following the DOI link. ``` **Prompt:** ``` Find all publications by Jennifer Doudna related to gene editing. ``` **Response:** ``` I found 10 works by Jennifer Doudna. Here are the top results: * **A Programmable Dual-RNA-Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity** (2012, Science) - Cited 15,000+ times. * Several follow-up works in *Nature* regarding CRISPR applications. * Various reviews in *Cell*. Each entry includes the DOI, journal name, and full citation count. ``` **Prompt:** ``` Search for the latest research on quantum computing error correction. ``` **Response:** ``` I found 10 relevant works. Highlights include: * **Suppressing quantum errors by scaling a surface code logical qubit** in *Nature* (2023), cited 320 times. * Recent work from Google Quantum AI and IBM Research on topological error correction codes. All results include full author lists and citation metrics. ``` ## Capabilities ### Resolve DOIs to full metadata Turn a DOI string into a complete set of bibliographic details like authors, journal names, and abstracts. ### Search scholarly works by keyword Find research papers, books, and datasets across all scientific disciplines using plain text. ### Find all publications by a specific author Retrieve a sorted list of every work produced by a specific researcher across all major publishers. ### Retrieve citation counts for specific papers Get the total number of citations for any scholarly work to gauge its impact in your field. ### Pull abstracts for research papers Get the summary text for any scholarly work to quickly understand its contents. ### Get full bibliographic details for datasets Extract publication years, types, and author lists for scholarly datasets and conference papers. ## Use Cases ### Verifying a source for a science article A science journalist asks their agent to find the original publication year and author list for a DOI to ensure their facts are 100% accurate. ### Building a research bibliography A PhD student gives their agent a list of 30 DOIs and asks it to return a formatted table of all titles, journals, and citation counts. ### Mapping a researcher's career A data analyst asks the agent to find all publications by a specific scientist to see how their research focus has shifted over the last decade. ### Finding the most cited papers on a topic A researcher asks their agent to find the top 20 most cited papers on 'quantum error correction' across all scientific disciplines. ## Benefits - Get instant DOI resolution with get_crossref_doi so you never have to manually hunt for a paper's title or journal information again. - Build complete bibliographies faster by using search_crossref to pull full metadata for dozens of works in a single request. - Verify researcher credentials instantly with search_crossref_author to see every publication a scientist has produced across all major publishers. - Pull accurate citation counts for any paper to gauge its impact within your specific field of study without leaving your chat window. - Save hours of manual data entry by letting your agent extract abstracts and publication types for large sets of scholarly works. - Conduct deep bibliometric analysis by gathering publication years and journal data for thousands of records across all scientific disciplines. ## How It Works The bottom line is your agent gains direct access to the world's largest repository of scholarly data without you needing an API key. 1. Subscribe to the CrossRef MCP on the Vinkius Marketplace. 2. Connect the Connector to your AI client like Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf. 3. Ask your agent to resolve a DOI or search for specific research topics. ## Frequently Asked Questions **What can I do with the CrossRef MCP?** You can use it to find scholarly works, resolve DOIs to full metadata, and look up citation counts for millions of academic records across all scientific disciplines. **Does CrossRef MCP include books and conference papers?** Yes, it covers journals, books, conference papers, datasets, and dissertations across all scientific disciplines. **Can I find all papers by a specific scientist?** You can use it to search for every publication by a researcher name across all major publishers simultaneously, sorted by relevance. **How does CrossRef MCP help with bibliographies?** It allows your agent to pull full bibliographic data for multiple works at once, making it much faster to build out your research lists without manual data entry. **Does CrossRef MCP require an API key?** No, you can start resolving DOIs and searching scholarly works immediately after connecting the Connector to your AI client. **Can I use CrossRef MCP for science writing?** It's perfect for science writers who need to quickly verify publication details and ensure they are citing sources accurately. **What exactly is a DOI and why is CrossRef important?** A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique, permanent identifier assigned to every published scholarly work — like a social security number for academic papers. CrossRef maintains the world's largest DOI registry with 140M+ records, making it the authoritative source for bibliographic metadata across all publishers globally. **Is authentication or registration required to use this server?** No. CrossRef's public API is free and open without authentication. Adding a polite email in the User-Agent header (which this server does automatically) grants access to the 'polite pool' with significantly faster response times. **What types of scholarly works can I find through CrossRef?** CrossRef covers virtually every type of scholarly output: journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, preprints, datasets, dissertations, and technical reports. It aggregates metadata from 20,000+ publishers including Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Oxford University Press, and thousands of smaller publishers worldwide.