Now liveThe Skillselion MCP - thousands of ranked skills, loaded into your agent mid-task. No install.Get it →
lingzhi227 avatar

Literature Search

  • 2.1k installs
  • 255 repo stars
  • Updated February 27, 2026
  • lingzhi227/agent-research-skills

literature-search is an agent skill that Search academic literature using Semantic Scholar, arXiv, and OpenAlex APIs. Returns structured JSONL with title, authors, year, venue, abstract, citations, and BibTeX. U.

About

The literature-search skill. 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. Expand the user's query into 2-4 complementary search queries 2. Run Semantic Scholar search (primary) with expanded queries 3. Run arXiv for very recent preprints (< 3 months) 4. Optionally run OpenAlex for broader coverage 5. Rank by: citations (0.3) + recency (0.3) + venue quality (0.2) + relevance (0.2) 7. The workflow follows the source SKILL.md contract with progressive reference loading, clear trigger phrases, and practical steps developers can apply directly in agent sessions. The workflow follows the source SKILL.md contract with progressive reference loading, clear trigger phrases, and practical steps developers can apply directly in agent sessions.

  • `$ARGUMENTS` - The search query (natural language)
  • 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

Literature Search by the numbers

  • 2,067 all-time installs (skills.sh)
  • +60 installs in the week ending Aug 5, 2026 (Skillselion tracking)
  • Ranked #581 of 16,546 AI & Agent Building skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
  • Security screen: HIGH risk (skills.sh audit)
  • Data as of Aug 5, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
At a glance

literature-search capabilities & compatibility

Capabilities
`$arguments` the search query (natural languag · expand the user's query into 2 4 complementary s · run semantic scholar search (primary) with expan · run arxiv for very recent preprints (< 3 months) · optionally run openalex for broader coverage
Use cases
testing · debugging · ci cd
From the docs

What literature-search says it does

Expand the user's query into 2-4 complementary search queries 2.
SKILL.md
Run Semantic Scholar search (primary) with expanded queries 3.
SKILL.md
npx skills add https://github.com/lingzhi227/agent-research-skills --skill literature-search

Add your badge

Show developers this skill is listed on Skillselion. Paste this into your README.

Listed on Skillselion
Installs2.1k
repo stars255
Security audit0 / 3 scanners passed
Last updatedFebruary 27, 2026
Repositorylingzhi227/agent-research-skills

How do I apply literature-search correctly using the SKILL.md workflows and reference files?

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

Who is it for?

Developers and software engineers working with literature-search patterns from the skill documentation.

Skip if: Skip when cached docs are empty, boilerplate-only, or outside the skill documented scope.

When should I use this skill?

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 relat

What you get

Grounded literature-search guidance with highlights, triggers, and evidence quotes from SKILL.md.

  • Extracted .tex source files
  • Local arxiv_papers output directory
  • arXiv API search results

By the numbers

  • Uses only Python stdlib urllib and xml.etree with no feedparser dependency
  • Supports --max-results flag for multi-hit title searches

Files

SKILL.mdMarkdownGitHub ↗

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.jsonl

Key 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.jsonl

OpenAlex (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.jsonl

Merge & Deduplicate

python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/paper_db.py merge \
  --inputs results_s2.jsonl results_arxiv.jsonl results_openalex.jsonl \
  --output merged.jsonl

CrossRef (DOI-based lookup, broadest type coverage)

python ~/.claude/skills/literature-search/scripts/search_crossref.py \
  --query "QUERY" --rows 10 --output results_crossref.jsonl

Key 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.bib

Workflow

1. Expand the user's query into 2-4 complementary search queries 2. Run Semantic Scholar search (primary) with expanded queries 3. Run arXiv for very recent preprints (< 3 months) 4. Optionally run OpenAlex for broader coverage 5. Merge and deduplicate results 6. Rank by: citations (0.3) + recency (0.3) + venue quality (0.2) + relevance (0.2) 7. 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

Related skills

Forks & variants (2)

Literature Search has 2 known copies in the catalog totaling 33 installs. They canonicalize to this original listing.

How it compares

Choose literature-search over PDF download tools when you need editable LaTeX source for equations and proofs, not rendered PDF pages.

FAQ

Who is literature-search for?

Developers and software engineers working with literature-search patterns from the skill documentation.

When should I use literature-search?

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.

Is literature-search safe to install?

Review the Security Audits panel on this page before installing in production.

This week in AI coding

Five minutes, every Monday - the tools, releases and tactics for developers.

unsubscribe anytime.