Refcheck
- UMN-Choi-Lab/refcheck
refcheck is a MCP server that verifies academic citations against scholarly databases and exports BibTeX.
About
refcheck is an MCP server that checks academic citations against live databases, flags references models invent or garble, and can export BibTeX for your bibliography toolchain. developers writing literature reviews, researchers shipping preprints, or developers documenting ML papers with Claude Code routinely discover that agents cite plausible but nonexistent DOIs. refcheck-mcp on PyPI connects Crossref (with CROSSREF_EMAIL for polite rate limits) and optional Semantic Scholar, Elsevier, and IEEE keys so verification depth scales with the APIs you enable. It belongs early in the journey when you are still proving claims and cleaning reading lists, and it remains useful in Build docs when you finalize bibliographies for READMEs or whitepapers. It is not a general fact-checker for blog opinions—only structured citation validation with database backing.
- Verifies citations against real scholarly databases
- Surfaces hallucinated or mismatched references before publication
- Exports verified references to BibTeX
- Optional keys for Crossref polite pool, Semantic Scholar, Elsevier, IEEE
- PyPI package refcheck-mcp v0.1.0 with stdio transport
Refcheck by the numbers
- Data as of Jul 7, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
claude mcp add --env CROSSREF_EMAIL=YOUR_CROSSREF_EMAIL --env S2_API_KEY=YOUR_S2_API_KEY --env ELSEVIER_KEY=YOUR_ELSEVIER_KEY --env ELSEVIER_INSTTOKEN=YOUR_ELSEVIER_INSTTOKEN --env IEEE_API_KEY=YOUR_IEEE_API_KEY refcheck-mcp -- uvx refcheck-mcpAdd your badge
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| Package | refcheck-mcp |
|---|---|
| Transport | STDIO |
| Auth | Required |
| Repository | UMN-Choi-Lab/refcheck ↗ |
What it does
Verify citations and bibliographies from agent-drafted research before you publish papers, posts, or technical docs.
Who is it for?
Best when you use agents to draft papers and need database-backed citation checks before shipping content.
Skip if: Skip if you never cite academic sources, or teams that already use a dedicated reference manager with no MCP workflow.
What you get
After install, you can validate references via MCP, reject bad citations early, and export BibTeX from checks that matched real records.
- Database-backed citation validation results
- Identification of invalid or suspect references
- BibTeX export for verified citations
By the numbers
- Server version 0.1.0 on PyPI identifier refcheck-mcp
- Transport: stdio
- Environment variables documented: CROSSREF_EMAIL, S2_API_KEY, ELSEVIER_KEY, ELSEVIER_INSTTOKEN, IEEE_API_KEY
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Citation verification MCP backed by Crossref and optional publisher APIs, not a writing-style or brainstorming skill.
FAQ
Who is Refcheck for?
Anyone using MCP agents to draft research, theses, or citation-heavy docs who must confirm references exist in Crossref, Semantic Scholar, or publisher catalogs.
When should I use Refcheck?
Use it during Idea research and before publishing Build-phase documentation whenever an agent produced a reference list or inline citations.
How do I add Refcheck to my agent?
Install Refcheck-mcp from PyPI (v0.1.0), set CROSSREF_EMAIL and any optional API keys, register the server as stdio in your MCP client, then invoke verify tools per the Refcheck repository.