Search academic literature using Semantic Scholar, arXiv, and OpenAlex APIs. Returns structured JSONL with title, authors, year, venue, abstract, citations, and BibTeX. Use when the user needs to find papers, check related work, or build a bibliography.
Resources
1Install
npx skillscat add lingzhi227/agent-research-skills/literature-search Install via the SkillsCat registry.
Literature Search
Search multiple academic databases to find relevant papers.
Input
$ARGUMENTS— The search query (natural language)
Scripts
Semantic Scholar (primary — best for ML/AI, has BibTeX)
python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/search_semantic_scholar.py \
--query "QUERY" --max-results 20 --year-range 2022-2026 \
--api-key "$(grep S2_API_Key /Users/lingzhi/Code/keys.md 2>/dev/null | cut -d: -f2 | tr -d ' ')" \
-o results_s2.jsonlKey flags: --peer-reviewed-only, --top-conferences, --min-citations N, --venue NeurIPS ICML
arXiv (latest preprints)
python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/search_arxiv.py \
--query "QUERY" --max-results 10 -o results_arxiv.jsonlOpenAlex (broadest coverage, free, no API key)
python ~/.claude/skills/literature-search/scripts/search_openalex.py \
--query "QUERY" --max-results 20 --year-range 2022-2026 \
--min-citations 5 -o results_openalex.jsonlMerge & Deduplicate
python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/paper_db.py merge \
--inputs results_s2.jsonl results_arxiv.jsonl results_openalex.jsonl \
--output merged.jsonlCrossRef (DOI-based lookup, broadest type coverage)
python ~/.claude/skills/literature-search/scripts/search_crossref.py \
--query "QUERY" --rows 10 --output results_crossref.jsonlKey flags: --bibtex (output .bib format), --rows N
Download arXiv Source (get .tex files)
python ~/.claude/skills/literature-search/scripts/download_arxiv_source.py \
--title "Paper Title" --output-dir arxiv_papers/Key flags: --arxiv-id 1706.03762, --metadata, --max-results N
Generate BibTeX from results
python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/bibtex_manager.py \
--jsonl merged.jsonl --output references.bibWorkflow
- Expand the user's query into 2-4 complementary search queries
- Run Semantic Scholar search (primary) with expanded queries
- Run arXiv for very recent preprints (< 3 months)
- Optionally run OpenAlex for broader coverage
- Merge and deduplicate results
- Rank by: citations (0.3) + recency (0.3) + venue quality (0.2) + relevance (0.2)
- Present structured results table
Venue Quality Tiers
Tier 1: NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, KDD, AAAI, IJCAI, SIGIR, WWW
Tier 2: AISTATS, UAI, COLT, COLING, EACL, WACV, JMLR, TACL
Tier 3: Workshops, arXiv preprints — mark with (preprint)
Output Format
Present results as a table + detailed entries with BibTeX keys. Always note preprint status.
Related Skills
- Downstream: citation-management, literature-review, related-work-writing
- See also: deep-research, novelty-assessment