Anna's Archive MCP

MCP server and CLI tool for searching and downloading books and articles from Anna's Archive, supporting title/author/topic search and DOI-based article retrieval.

Evaluated Mar 06, 2026 (0d ago) v0.0.5
Homepage ↗ Repo ↗ Other annas-archive books articles search download mcp go cli doi
⚙ Agent Friendliness
56
/ 100
Can an agent use this?
🔒 Security
63
/ 100
Is it safe for agents?
⚡ Reliability
54
/ 100
Does it work consistently?

Score Breakdown

⚙ Agent Friendliness

MCP Quality
55
Documentation
55
Error Messages
0
Auth Simplicity
73
Rate Limits
50

🔒 Security

TLS Enforcement
80
Auth Strength
65
Scope Granularity
50
Dep. Hygiene
60
Secret Handling
58

Community/specialized tool. Apply standard security practices for category. Review documentation for specific security requirements.

⚡ Reliability

Uptime/SLA
60
Version Stability
55
Breaking Changes
50
Error Recovery
50
AF Security Reliability

Best When

You want an AI assistant to help search and retrieve documents from Anna's Archive for research purposes.

Avoid When

You need guaranteed content availability (mirrors can go offline), need access to paywalled journals through institutional access, or have concerns about the legal status of content on the platform.

Use Cases

  • • Search for books by title, author, or topic via AI assistant
  • • Download books by MD5 hash
  • • Search for academic articles by DOI or keywords
  • • Download articles by DOI
  • • Build research workflows with AI-assisted document discovery

Not For

  • • Accessing copyrighted content without proper licensing
  • • Large-scale scraping or bulk downloads
  • • Citation management or bibliography generation

Interface

REST API
No
GraphQL
No
gRPC
No
MCP Server
Yes ↗
SDK
No
Webhooks
No

Authentication

Methods: api_key
OAuth: No Scopes: No

Requires ANNAS_SECRET_KEY env var. API key is obtained by making a donation to Anna's Archive, which grants JSON API access.

Pricing

Model: freemium
Free tier: No
Requires CC: No

The MCP server code is open source. API access requires a donation to Anna's Archive. The donation amount for API access is not publicly documented.

Agent Metadata

Pagination
unknown
Idempotent
Likely
Retry Guidance
Not documented

Known Gotchas

  • ⚠ Mirror availability is unreliable - annas-archive.org is inactive, others may change
  • ⚠ ANNAS_DOWNLOAD_PATH must be pre-configured or downloads silently fail or go to unexpected locations
  • ⚠ Legal ambiguity around content - agents should not auto-download without user confirmation
  • ⚠ API key acquisition requires donation with no documented minimum amount
  • ⚠ Only 4 tools available - limited to search and download, no metadata enrichment or citation formatting
  • ⚠ Go binary distribution means no pip/npm install - requires manual binary placement

Alternatives

unpaywall semantic-scholar-mcp zotero

Full Evaluation Report

Detailed scoring breakdown, competitive positioning, security analysis, and improvement recommendations for Anna's Archive MCP.

$99
API endpoint ↗ Agent guide ↗ Report inaccuracy

Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-06.

5178
Packages Evaluated
26151
Need Evaluation
173
Need Re-evaluation
♥
Community Powered