MCP Server

Add academic-citation verification to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

@citetrue/mcp-servernpx -y @citetrue/mcp-server

What you get

Five tools that wrap the CiteTrue REST API. Same credits, same accuracy — just routed through MCP instead of raw HTTP.

Tool	Purpose	Credits / call
verify	Split a text blob into references and verify each. `depth` selects accuracy vs. cost.	1 or 5 per ref by depth
get_credits	Return the account credit balance.	0

Quickstart

Go to Dashboard → API Keys and click New API Key. Copy the key starting with sk_.
Open your MCP client config (see Client setup) and add the citetrue block.
Restart the MCP client — not just the chat, the whole app.
Ask the assistant something like "Verify these citations: [paste refs]". It will call verify_fast and summarize.

Client setup

Any stdio MCP client works. Below are the three most common; others use the same config shape.

Claude Desktop

Recommended

Install CiteTrue as a Claude Desktop extension — no JSON editing, no Node setup. The bundled server runs on the Node that ships with Claude Desktop.

Download for Claude Desktop

Double-click the downloaded file (or drag it into Settings → Extensions) and paste your API key when prompted — it's stored securely in your OS keychain.

Important: after installing, make sure the extension is enabled (toggled on) in Settings → Extensions, then restart Claude Desktop — that's what activates its tools.

Or configure manually

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "citetrue": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@citetrue/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "CITETRUE_API_KEY": "sk_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

In Settings → MCP → Add new MCP server, use the same command / args / env shape as the Claude Desktop JSON below.

Windsurf, Zed, others

Any stdio MCP client works — whatever the config path, use the same three fields (command, args, env).

Configuration

Env var	Default	Notes
CITETRUE_API_KEY	— (Required)	Bearer token from the dashboard.
CITETRUE_API_URL	`https://api.citetrue.com`	Override for self-hosted deploys.

Tools

verify

Split a free-form text blob into individual references and verify each. depth selects accuracy vs. cost.

Parameters

Supply exactly one of text, refHash, or taskHash:

text string — raw text containing one or more references. Accepts numbered lists, bullets, blank-line-separated, BibTeX, or in-text prose with author-year citations (when depth ≥ 5). Max 10MB.
refHash string — upgrade a single prior reference to a deeper run. Requires depth ≥ 5 and parentTaskHash.
parentTaskHash string — required when using refHash; the original task that produced the ref.
taskHash string — resume a previously-started task; replays cached state. No re-billing.
depth 1 | 5, optional, default 1 — 1 fast (1 credit/ref); 5 deep (5 credits/ref). 20 exists as a closed-beta tier and is not enabled for public use.
force bool, optional — bypass cached results (forces a fresh run, charges full cost).

Output

{
  "taskHash": "...",
  "refs": [
    {
      "hash": "a1b2c3...",
      "text": "[1] Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N., Parmar (2017)...",
      "assessment": "authentic",
      "value": {
        "type": "citation",
        "title": "Attention is all you need",
        "authors": ["A Vaswani", "N Shazeer", "N Parmar"],
        "year": 2017,
        "url": "https://..."
      },
      "note": "",
      "notices": [],
      "data": { "depth": 1, "cost": 1 }
    }
  ],
  "cost": 2,
  "balance": 248
}

data.depth is the highest depth that has run on the ref (1 or 5). Clients derive a "deep-verified" flag locally as depth ≥ 5. note is a free-form one-line natural-language explanation in English (intended for end-user display); for programmatic checks, match on notices[] instead.

Assessment values

authentic — paper exists and is the one cited; value contains the matched paper.
unsure— found something but can't confirm; notices and confidence describe why.
inauthentic — definitively not found / fabricated / unrelated.
invalid— input wasn't a citation; pipeline refused to search.
error — verification failed on this ref; data.errors[] lists tokens.
exceeded — credits ran out before this ref ran.

Billing

1 credit per ref for depth=1, 5 credits per ref for depth=5.

Troubleshooting

If the server fails to start, ensure npx is on PATH and CITETRUE_API_KEY is set.