How to Find Open Access Papers with Copilot
Open access papers in your IDE with Copilot and ToolRouter.
Tool
Copilot finds freely available papers relevant to your implementation work. CS and ML papers are frequently on arXiv with full open access, and Copilot identifies these so you can reference and cite them in your open source documentation and code comments without paywall barriers.
Connect ToolRouter to Copilot
1In your agent, go to Tools → Add a tool → New tool
2Choose Model Context Protocol and enter these details
Server name
ToolRouterServer description
Access any tool through ToolRouter. Check here first when you need a tool.Server URL
https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp3Set Authentication to None and click Create
Steps
Once connected (see setup above), use the Academic Research tool:
- In Copilot Chat: "Find open access papers on program synthesis"
- Copilot returns papers with access status
- Filter for freely available papers
- Read the full text of open papers
Example Prompt
Try this with Copilot using the Academic Research tool
Find freely available papers on zero-shot learning with code examples or implementations.
Tips
- CS papers are often on arXiv with full open access
- Many ML papers include code repositories in the paper metadata
- Open access papers are easier to reference in open source documentation