Paper Search

Search for academic papers and get details including title, authors, citation count, DOI, abstract, and open access links.

Setup

Requires bash, curl, and jq (the scripts check and report missing ones).

The scripts live in scripts/ inside this skill directory (the folder containing this SKILL.md). Resolve all paths relative to that skill directory, not the current working directory. Run them with bash so no executable bit is required:

bash <skill-dir>/scripts/search.sh ...

If the skill directory is unknown, locate it (covers the usual harness skill roots):

find ~/.claude ~/.agents ~/.pi/agent ~/.cursor ~/.codex -path "*paper-search/scripts/search.sh" 2>/dev/null | head -1

Search by keyword

bash <skill-dir>/scripts/search.sh "query" [limit] [sort] [page]

• limit: results per page (default 10, max 200)
• sort: relevance (default), cites, or date
• page: page number for pagination (default 1)

Look up a specific paper

bash <skill-dir>/scripts/paper.sh <DOI_URL or OpenAlex_ID>

• Accepts DOI URLs like https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8020020
• Or OpenAlex IDs like W2789811475
• Returns full details: authors, abstract, concepts, open access PDF link, related works

Tips

• Use relevance (default) for topical searches, cites for landmark papers.
• Be specific with queries — "bilingual cognitive advantages executive function" beats "bilingualism brain".
• Use paper.sh to get the full abstract when search results show "Abstract: N/A".
• The related_works IDs from paper.sh can be fed back into paper.sh to explore the citation graph.
• When the user asks for scientific backing: search broadly first, pick the most relevant/cited papers, then use paper.sh for full details and cite as (Author, Year, Journal).
• Optionally set PAPER_SEARCH_MAILTO to an email address to join OpenAlex's polite pool (more stable rates).