# 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.

- Skill: `leo1oel/find-and-read-papers` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add leo1oel/find-and-read-papers`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/leo1oel/find-and-read-papers/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Research & Search
- Author: leo1oel (https://skillmd.com/u/leo1oel)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/leo1oel/find-and-read-papers

---


# 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:

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

```bash
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:

```bash
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:

```bash
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.