citation-management

Q: How do I install citation-management?

Run npx skills add https://github.com/lingzhi227/agent-research-skills --skill citation-management in your project. The skills CLI detects the agents you use and copies the skill into the right folder. For Claude Code you can also place the skill folder at ~/.claude/skills/citation-management/ (personal) or .claude/skills/citation-management/ (project).

by lingzhi227Productivity & Automation

Manage BibTeX citations for LaTeX papers. Harvest missing citations from a draft using Semantic Scholar, validate cite keys against .bib files, deduplicate entries, and format bibliography. Use when working with references, BibTeX, or citations.

Installs: 2.1K
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Security: Not audited

Install

Works with every agent the skills CLI supports.

npx skills add https://github.com/lingzhi227/agent-research-skills --skill citation-management

01
Install
Run the command in your project. The CLI asks which agents to install for.
02
Describe the task
Ask your agent for something this skill covers. It loads citation-management automatically when relevant.
03
Review the result
The agent follows the SKILL.md steps, scripts and references bundled with the skill.

SKILL.md

The instructions your agent reads when the skill is triggered.

Citation Management

Manage the full lifecycle of citations in a LaTeX paper.

Input

$0 — Action: harvest, validate, add, format
$1 — Path to .tex or .bib file

Scripts

Validate citations (check all cite keys resolve)

python ~/.claude/skills/citation-management/scripts/validate_citations.py \
  --tex paper/main.tex --bib paper/references.bib --check-figures --figures-dir paper/figures/

Reports: missing citations, unused bib entries, duplicate keys, duplicate sections, duplicate labels, undefined references, missing figures.

Generate BibTeX from paper database

python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/bibtex_manager.py \
  --jsonl paper_db.jsonl --output references.bib

Search for a specific paper to add

python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/search_semantic_scholar.py \
  --query "attention is all you need" --max-results 5 \
  --api-key "$(grep S2_API_Key /Users/lingzhi/Code/keys.md 2>/dev/null | cut -d: -f2 | tr -d ' ')"

Harvest missing citations automatically

python ~/.claude/skills/citation-management/scripts/harvest_citations.py \
  --tex paper/main.tex --bib paper/references.bib --output candidates.bib --max-rounds 10

Scans .tex for uncited claims, searches Semantic Scholar, outputs candidate BibTeX entries. Key flags: --dry-run (preview only), --verbose, --api-key

Auto-fix missing citation placeholders

python ~/.claude/skills/citation-management/scripts/validate_citations.py \
  --tex paper/main.tex --bib paper/references.bib --fix

Generates references_fixed.bib with placeholder entries for all missing citation keys.

Action: `harvest` — Iterative Citation Harvesting

Based on AI-Scientist's 20-round citation harvesting loop. For each round:

Read the current .tex draft
Identify the most important missing citation
Search Semantic Scholar via script
Select the most relevant paper from results
Extract BibTeX and generate a clean key (lastNameYearWord)
Append to .bib (skip if key exists)
Insert \cite{key} at the appropriate location
Stop when no more gaps or 20 rounds reached

Key rules:

DO NOT add a citation that already exists
Only add citations found via API — never fabricate
Cite broadly — not just popular papers
Do not copy verbatim from prior literature

Action: `validate` — Pre-Compilation Check

Run validate_citations.py to catch all issues before compilation. Fix any reported problems.

Action: `add` — Add Specific Paper

Search Semantic Scholar for the paper, extract BibTeX, clean the key, append to .bib.

BibTeX key format: firstAuthorLastNameYearFirstContentWord (e.g., vaswani2017attention)

Action: `format` — Standardize .bib

Sort entries alphabetically by key
Ensure consistent indentation (2 spaces)
Remove empty fields
Protect proper nouns with {Braces} in titles
Ensure required fields per entry type

Related Skills

Upstream: literature-search, deep-research
Downstream: paper-compilation, latex-formatting
See also: related-work-writing

FAQ

What does the citation-management skill do?

How do I install citation-management?

Run npx skills add https://github.com/lingzhi227/agent-research-skills --skill citation-management in your project. The skills CLI detects the agents you use and copies the skill into the right folder. For Claude Code you can also place the skill folder at ~/.claude/skills/citation-management/ (personal) or .claude/skills/citation-management/ (project).

Which AI agents can use citation-management?

Any agent that supports the open Agent Skills format (a folder with a SKILL.md file), including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Cline, OpenCode and more.

Is citation-management safe to install?

No partner security audit is available yet. Skills can run commands and scripts, so read the SKILL.md and any bundled files before installing.

Who maintains citation-management?

It is published by lingzhi227 in lingzhi227/agent-research-skills. It has 2,115 recorded installs.