How do I install the Find And Read Papers skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add leo1oel/find-and-read-papers in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

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Which AI agents work with Find And Read Papers?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Find And Read Papers free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Find And Read Papers?

leo1oel (@leo1oel) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Find And Read Papers by leo1oel — Agent Skill

Name: Find And Read Papers
Author: leo1oel

Find And Read Papers

Find related research papers and read them for evidence — related work, literature search, citation lineage, prior art, seed-paper expansion, or reading / summarizing / analyzing / fact-checking a preprint. Use whenever the user asks for papers on a topic, pastes an arXiv URL or id, or needs claims checked against the paper itself rather than a web summary.

leo1oel Updated Sep 17, 2026

File contents

Find and read papers

Ground literature work in paper indexes and paper text. Search alphaXiv and OpenAlex together — full-text and citation-graph hits cover different misses. Read the alphaXiv overview to orient, then local arxiv2md for evidence, because overview text is not the paper. Do not start with ad-hoc web search or raw PDF/HTML fetches from arxiv.org.

After the text is in hand, use research-taste for critique and taste. For .bib / \cite{...}, use bibcite — this skill does not edit bibliographies.

Search

Run both in parallel for a topic or method phrase:

curl -sG "https://api.alphaxiv.org/search/v2/paper/full-text" \
  --data-urlencode "q=<terms>" \
  --data-urlencode "limit=10"

curl -s "https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=title_and_abstract.search:<terms>&per_page=20&select=id,title,publication_year,cited_by_count,ids&api_key=$OPENALEX_API_KEY"

Omit &api_key=... when OPENALEX_API_KEY is unset. URL-encode query terms. Use alphaXiv when the query is wording that lives in the body; use OpenAlex when you need lineage, citation weight, or a seed to expand. Merge by versionless arXiv id; keep OpenAlex-only works that have no arXiv id. Return a short ranked list (id, title, year, why it matched) — not raw JSON. Delegate multi-paper sweeps to subagents so the main context keeps findings.

Read references/search.md when walking a seed's citation graph, decoding OpenAlex abstracts, handling slug/non-arXiv alphaXiv ids, or both indexes miss.

Read

Normalize any arXiv / alphaXiv URL to an id (last path segment; strip .pdf / .md). Classic ids look like 2401.12345 or 2401.12345v2.

Overview first — cheap map of the paper:

curl -sL "https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/<id>.md"

Then arxiv2md for the sections the question needs — so context stays on evidence, not the whole PDF:

uvx --from arxiv2markdown arxiv2md <id> \
  --section-filter-mode include \
  --sections "Abstract,Introduction,Experiments" \
  -o paper.md

If section titles are unknown, convert with --remove-refs --remove-toc, then narrow. Do not call https://arxiv2md.org/api/.... Read paper.md. Numbers, equations, tables, hyperparameters, and experimental setup must come from arxiv2md (or a figure you opened), not from the overview alone. If overview 404s on a classic id, go straight to arxiv2md.

Read references/reading.md for figures, slug ids, linked code, or when arxiv2md has no HTML.

---name: find-and-read-papersdescription: Find related research papers and read them for evidence — related work, literature search, citation lineage, prior art, seed-paper expansion, or reading / summarizing / analyzing / fact-checking a preprint. Use whenever the user asks for papers on a topic, pastes an arXiv URL or id, or needs claims checked against the paper itself rather than a web summary.---# Find and read papersGround literature work in paper indexes and paper text.Search alphaXiv and OpenAlex together — full-text and citation-graph hits cover different misses.Read the alphaXiv overview to orient, then local `arxiv2md` for evidence, because overview text is not the paper.Do not start with ad-hoc web search or raw PDF/HTML fetches from arxiv.org.After the text is in hand, use `research-taste` for critique and taste.For `.bib` / `\cite{...}`, use `bibcite` — this skill does not edit bibliographies.## SearchRun both in parallel for a topic or method phrase:```bashcurl -sG "https://api.alphaxiv.org/search/v2/paper/full-text" \ --data-urlencode "q=<terms>" \ --data-urlencode "limit=10"``````bashcurl -s "https://api.openalex.org/works?filter=title_and_abstract.search:<terms>&per_page=20&select=id,title,publication_year,cited_by_count,ids&api_key=$OPENALEX_API_KEY"```Omit `&api_key=...` when `OPENALEX_API_KEY` is unset.URL-encode query terms.Use alphaXiv when the query is wording that lives in the body; use OpenAlex when you need lineage, citation weight, or a seed to expand.Merge by versionless arXiv id; keep OpenAlex-only works that have no arXiv id.Return a short ranked list (id, title, year, why it matched) — not raw JSON.Delegate multi-paper sweeps to subagents so the main context keeps findings.Read `references/search.md` when walking a seed's citation graph, decoding OpenAlex abstracts, handling slug/non-arXiv alphaXiv ids, or both indexes miss.## ReadNormalize any arXiv / alphaXiv URL to an id (last path segment; strip `.pdf` / `.md`).Classic ids look like `2401.12345` or `2401.12345v2`.**Overview first** — cheap map of the paper:```bashcurl -sL "https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/<id>.md"```**Then `arxiv2md` for the sections the question needs** — so context stays on evidence, not the whole PDF:```bashuvx --from arxiv2markdown arxiv2md <id> \ --section-filter-mode include \ --sections "Abstract,Introduction,Experiments" \ -o paper.md```If section titles are unknown, convert with `--remove-refs --remove-toc`, then narrow.Do not call `https://arxiv2md.org/api/...`.Read `paper.md`.Numbers, equations, tables, hyperparameters, and experimental setup must come from `arxiv2md` (or a figure you opened), not from the overview alone.If overview 404s on a classic id, go straight to `arxiv2md`.Read `references/reading.md` for figures, slug ids, linked code, or when `arxiv2md` has no HTML.

Frequently asked questions