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A collection is a saved, named set of papers. Seven MCP tools let an assistant build and maintain one during a conversation — group DOIs it just found, add to an existing set, or search within one. Requires a signed-in Scite account on a premium subscription. Anonymous sessions can’t use these tools, because a collection needs an owner.

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Two kinds of collection

MCP creates DOI-list collections. add_dois_to_collection and remove_dois_from_collection work on both kinds; create_collection and update_collection handle DOI-list collections only. For a saved-search collection, adding a DOI force-includes it so it appears even when the query wouldn’t return it, and removing a DOI excludes it so it doesn’t appear even when the query would.
A collection is a set of papers. A dashboard is a report on a collection. They aren’t the same thing — see the glossary.

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Access levels

Every collection tool checks the caller’s access level. The creator becomes ADMIN. You reach VIEWER by owning the collection, being shared on it, being in an organization it’s shared with, or — if is_public is set — holding the slug.

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The slug

Every tool except create_collection and search_collections identifies a collection by its slug. You get one from create_collection or search_collections; there’s no way to look one up by name directly.

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Create

create_collection takes a name (required), and optionally a description, a dois list to seed it, and is_public.
Seeded DOIs are validated and resolved against Scite. Unknown DOIs are dropped, not rejected — the response reports how many via unmatchedDoiCount, so check it rather than assuming every DOI landed. An empty dois list creates an empty collection. is_public defaults to false. When true, anyone holding the slug can view the collection. The response carries id, slug, name, description, isPublic, doiQueryType, accessType, and DOI counts.

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Read

get_collection takes a slug and returns the collection’s identity, sharing, access level, and DOI counts. Requires VIEWER. search_collections lists the collections you can access, with an optional q to filter by a case-insensitive substring of the name. It returns {collections: [...], total: N}.
search_collections filters your own collections by name. It is not a full-text search across all collections, and it doesn’t search paper contents. To search the papers inside a collection, pass its slug to search_literature as collection_slug.

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Update

update_collection takes a slug plus any of name, description, dois, and is_public. Requires EDITOR or ADMIN. It’s a partial update, but the dois field behaves differently from the rest:
  • Omit dois and the DOI list is left alone.
  • Supply dois and it replaces the entire list.
To add or remove a few DOIs without rebuilding the list, use the membership tools below instead.

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Change membership

add_dois_to_collection and remove_dois_from_collection both take a slug and a non-empty dois array. Both require EDITOR or ADMIN, and both are idempotent — adding a DOI already present is ignored, as is removing one that isn’t there.
Removing DOIs takes papers out of the collection. It does not delete the collection.

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Delete

delete_collection takes a slug and requires ADMIN. It returns {deleted: true, slug: "..."}.
Deletion is permanent. The collection and its DOI membership are removed and cannot be recovered. The tool carries the MCP destructiveHint annotation, so a well-behaved client will ask you to confirm before calling it.

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Searching within a collection

Once a collection exists, search_literature can search inside it. Pass the slug as collection_slug and combine it with term and any other filter.