ReadCube Papers

Access the user's ReadCube Papers library via unofficial API.

Note: This uses an unofficial API reverse-engineered from the ReadCube Papers web app. It may break if ReadCube changes their API.

Authentication

Credentials are provided via environment variables:

• READCUBE_EMAIL - ReadCube account email
• READCUBE_PASSWORD - ReadCube account password

The user must set these before using this skill. On Windows PowerShell:

$env:READCUBE_EMAIL = "user@example.com"
$env:READCUBE_PASSWORD = "password"

Script Usage

The script is at scripts/readcube_papers.py. It requires no external dependencies (uses only urllib).

Commands

# Test login
python scripts/readcube_papers.py login

# List collections
python scripts/readcube_papers.py collections

# List all papers (JSON)
python scripts/readcube_papers.py list

# List all papers (Markdown, verbose)
python scripts/readcube_papers.py --format markdown list --verbose

# Get specific paper details
python scripts/readcube_papers.py get <item_id>

# Get annotations for a paper
python scripts/readcube_papers.py annotations <item_id>

# Search papers
python scripts/readcube_papers.py search "keyword"
python scripts/readcube_papers.py search "Smith" --field authors
python scripts/readcube_papers.py search "10.1234/example" --field doi
python scripts/readcube_papers.py --format markdown search "vacuole" --field title --verbose

Output Formats

• --format json (default): Structured JSON output for programmatic use
• --format markdown: Human-readable markdown with paper metadata

Typical Workflow

1. Run list to get all papers and their IDs
2. Use get <item_id> to retrieve detailed info for a specific paper
3. Use annotations <item_id> to get highlights and notes
4. Use search to filter papers by keyword across fields

Available Fields per Paper

Field	Description
title	Paper title
authors	Author list
year	Publication year
journal	Journal name
journal_abbrev	Abbreviated journal name
doi	Digital Object Identifier
abstract	Paper abstract
volume	Journal volume
pagination	Page numbers
url	Paper URL
tags	User-assigned tags
rating	User rating
notes	User notes

Annotation Fields

Field	Description
text	Highlighted text
note	User's note on the highlight
page	Page number
color_id	Highlight color (0=Yellow, 1=Red, 2=Green, 3=Blue, 4=Purple)
type	Annotation type