Citation Assistant skill

A skill that searches papers through Semantic Scholar, checks venue rankings and generates BibTeX for a manuscript.

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  • Last commit
Skill

Extended access

Why this level

  • Sends search query text to Semantic Scholar and CrossRef and stores the key in a local `.env`.
All reasons and checks

zhangny301/citation-assistant

Install

In your terminal, with SkillFoxx CLI

npx skillfoxx add skills/citation-assistant

Detects the agents on your machine, shows the access level and pins the version.

Other ways to install

Access and checks

How we review

Extended accessThe tool runs code or makes network calls and only reads external data.

  • Sends search query text to Semantic Scholar and CrossRef and stores the key in a local `.env`.

This is third-party code. Review the repository files before installing.

What it does

Citation Assistant selects academic sources for a citation context and shows where each result came from. Search goes through the Semantic Scholar API, and under persistent rate limiting the skill falls back to CrossRef. BibTeX comes from DOI resolution, so metadata is not invented. To judge quality the skill checks CCF ranking, JCR quartile, Chinese Academy of Sciences tier, impact factor and author H-index. Local venue databases sit in `data/` and work without a key. The result is a recommendation report, written in Chinese in the current version.

Who it is for. Authors of papers and theses in LaTeX who need verified references and venue assessment.

Good fit when

  • A paragraph lacks a source and papers for a specific claim must be found.
  • A reference list must be produced in BibTeX from DOIs with no manual typing.
  • Before submitting a paper you need to judge a venue by CCF and JCR rankings.
  • The author wants the H-index and citation counts for the authors of a found paper.

Not a fit when

  • You need a report in Russian or English while the skill writes it in Chinese.
  • You work on Windows without WSL, as the scripts are written in Bash.
  • Closed manuscripts must not be sent to external APIs.

Example request

Find five recent federated learning papers for this paragraph, assess the venues and output BibTeX.

Limitations

Bash, `curl` 7.55.0 or newer, `jq` and `sqlite3` with `-json` support are required; on Windows it runs only through WSL. Online search needs network access, and the Semantic Scholar `S2_API_KEY` is optional but raises limits. CCF, JCR and CAS rankings come from local databases and age with them. The recommendation report is written in Chinese. The repository declares no license. The last commit is dated October 2026.

How to disable. Delete the `citation-assistant` folder from the agent skills directory and the `.env` file with the key if you created one.

FAQ

How do I install the skill in Codex?

Clone the repository into `~/.agents/skills/citation-assistant`, optionally copy `.env.example` to `.env` and enter `S2_API_KEY`. Call it with `$citation-assistant`.

Is a Semantic Scholar key required?

No. Local venue lookups work without a key, and online search uses the key from `.env` or the environment. The `.env` file takes precedence over the variable.

What happens under rate limiting?

It falls back to CrossRef and marks which source each result came from.

Where does BibTeX come from?

From DOI resolution through `doi2bibtex.sh`. The skill verifies a reference against a real record instead of inventing fields.

Which agents are supported?

Codex, Claude Code and Cursor. For Cursor the skill is copied into `~/.cursor/skills`.

Discussion

No questions or reviews yet.

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README in short

The README in English and Chinese covers features, installation for three agents, key setup and sample requests. Scripts for search, venues and BibTeX sit in `scripts/`.

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