openalex_describe_fields

MCP tool from Openalex MCP Server by cyanheads

List valid filter, groupby, and select field names for an entity type — call before building a query to avoid invalid-field errors.

How to use it

openalex_describe_fields is exposed by the Openalex MCP Server MCP server. Add the server to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf and others), and the openalex_describe_fields tool becomes available to the model automatically. See the full listing for setup details and every tool this server provides.

Install Openalex MCP Server

$docker run -e OPENALEX_API_KEY=your-key -p 3010:3010 openalex-mcp-server

FULL OPENALEX MCP SERVER LISTING

Other tools in Openalex MCP Server (9)

cited_by

works the seed cites (its reference list)

cites

works that cite the seed (incoming citations)

display_name

is nullable — OpenAlex holds no title for paratext and other untitled records, which pass through instead of failing the whole page

group_by

returns the subset of the filter set OpenAlex can aggregate — raw date fields, .search operators, and from/to range modifiers are excluded

openalex_analyze_trends

Group-by aggregation for trend and distribution analysis.

openalex_get_citation_graph

Walk the citation graph one hop from a seed work: cites, citedby, or relatedto.

openalex_resolve_name

Resolve a name or an identifier (DOI, ORCID, ROR, PMID, PMCID, ISSN, OpenAlex ID) to an OpenAlex ID.

openalex_search_entities

Search, filter, sort, or retrieve by ID across all 8 entity types.

related_to

OpenAlex algorithmic "related works" (~8-30 typical, may be empty for less-cited seeds)