Anna's Archive

annas-mcp

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An MCP server that lets Claude, Cursor, Codex and other AI clients search Anna's Archive for books and papers and download the file you pick. It also works as a command-line tool.

Use it only for material you are entitled to obtain, under the laws and terms that apply to you.

Setup

You need Node.js 18 or newer and an Anna's Archive membership:

1. Get your credentials

• Account cookie. Sign in to Anna's Archive, open your browser's developer tools and go to Application (Chrome, Edge) or Storage (Firefox, Safari) → Cookies. Copy the value of aa_account_id2. It expires weekly; see Renewing the cookie.
• API key. Copy it from your Anna's Archive account page. See the API FAQ. Only needed for downloads.

2. Add the server to your client

Claude Code

claude mcp add annas-mcp \  --env ANNAS_ACCOUNT_COOKIE=your-cookie \  --env ANNAS_SECRET_KEY=your-api-key \  --env ANNAS_DOWNLOAD_PATH=/absolute/path/to/downloads \  -- npx -y annas-mcp

On native Windows (not WSL), end the command with -- cmd /c npx -y annas-mcp.

Claude Desktop, one click. Download annas-mcp.mcpb and open it, or drag it onto Settings → Extensions. Claude Desktop asks for the cookie, API key and download folder.

Claude Desktop and Cursor, by hand. Add this to Claude Desktop's config (Settings → Developer → Edit Config) or to Cursor's ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{  "mcpServers": {    "annas-mcp": {      "command": "npx",      "args": ["-y", "annas-mcp"],      "env": {        "ANNAS_ACCOUNT_COOKIE": "your-cookie",        "ANNAS_SECRET_KEY": "your-api-key",        "ANNAS_DOWNLOAD_PATH": "/absolute/path/to/downloads"      }    }  }}

Codex. Add this to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.annas-mcp]command = "npx"args = ["-y", "annas-mcp"]
[mcp_servers.annas-mcp.env]ANNAS_ACCOUNT_COOKIE = "your-cookie"ANNAS_SECRET_KEY = "your-api-key"ANNAS_DOWNLOAD_PATH = "/absolute/path/to/downloads"

Pick a permanent ANNAS_DOWNLOAD_PATH. Folders under /tmp are cleared by the operating system.

3. Try it

Restart your client and ask something like "Find the EPUB of Pride and Prejudice and download it." The AI searches, picks a copy and returns the path of the saved file.

npx downloads the latest release on first run, verifies its checksum and caches it. Later runs start from the cache and pick up new releases automatically.

Renewing the cookie

The aa_account_id2 cookie expires every week. When searches start failing with [UPSTREAM_BLOCKED]:

1. Copy a fresh aa_account_id2 value from your browser, as in step 1.
2. Replace ANNAS_ACCOUNT_COOKIE in your client's config.
3. Restart the MCP server from your client.

ANNAS_ACCOUNT_COOKIE accepts the bare value, aa_account_id2=… or a whole Cookie header copied from the Network tab. Only aa_account_id2 is ever sent. Keep the cookie and API key private.

Configuration

The server picks a working mirror by itself, and only among the official domains annas-archive.gl, .pk and .gd. Whatever host you set in ANNAS_BASE_URL receives your credentials, so only use one you trust.

The server and CLI also read a .env file from their working directory. Variables already set in the environment take precedence.

Tools

Every tool accepts timeout_seconds, covering the whole operation including retries. Searches default to 60 seconds and downloads to 30 minutes.

Searching

book_search and article_search take a query and return one page of results. Each result includes a hash, title, authors, format, size and language, and books also include a publisher. Optional fields:

Give article_search a DOI (10.1038/nature14539, doi:… or https://doi.org/…) to get that one article instead of a page of results.

Downloading

book_download takes the hash and a title. article_download takes either a doi or a hash, plus an optional title. Both return the saved file's path and size in bytes.

• Filename. title becomes the filename. Pass format (such as epub or pdf) to set the extension; this doesn't convert the file. Without it, the extension is detected from the download.
• No overwrites. An existing file is never overwritten: a name clash gets a short suffix.
• Integrity. Files are checked against the archive's MD5 hash, and incomplete or corrupt downloads are deleted.
• DOI fallback. When the fast download servers don't have a paper, article_download by DOI falls back to the PDF on Anna's SciDB page.

Troubleshooting

Errors start with a code:

A failed download lists every server it tried and why each one failed. A server starting up cleanly doesn't prove your credentials work; only a search or download tests them.

If the server doesn't start at all, run npx -y annas-mcp --version in a terminal to see the error. The launcher unpacks releases with the system's tar, which comes preinstalled on macOS, Windows 10 and later, and mainstream Linux distributions.

Command line

Every tool is also a command. Set the same variables (or put them in a .env file), then:

npx -y annas-mcp book-search "pride and prejudice" --language ennpx -y annas-mcp article-search 10.1038/nature14539npx -y annas-mcp book-download <hash> "Pride and Prejudice.epub"npx -y annas-mcp article-download 10.1038/nature14539

Add --json for machine-readable output, --timeout 10m to change the timeout, and --help to any command for all of its options.

Privacy

annas-mcp runs on your machine and has no telemetry. It sends your cookie and API key only to Anna's Archive, and downloads files from the servers Anna's Archive points it to. DOI lookups may contact doi.org. The npx launcher and the MCP Bundle contact GitHub to fetch and verify release binaries. Downloaded files stay in ANNAS_DOWNLOAD_PATH; nothing else is stored apart from the cached binary. Questions: open an issue.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for building from source, tests and releases.

Credits

The idea for this project comes from iosifache/annas-mcp, which first exposed Anna's Archive as an MCP server. This repository is a complete rewrite and shares no code with it.

License

MIT