# Aurelius > Produce fact-checked academic research drafts using the Aurelius MCP tools. Use whenever the user asks to research a topic, write a paper/literature review/long-form report, generate a LaTeX document, draw an architecture or flowchart diagram, or verify claims and citations against real scholarly sources. Screens the topic, drafts with standard academic structure, and verifies every citation and key claim (retraction-aware, via OpenAlex/Crossref) before presenting it. - Skill: `vibhorxpandey/aurelius` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add vibhorxpandey/aurelius` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/vibhorxpandey/aurelius/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: vibhorxpandey (https://skillmd.com/u/vibhorxpandey) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/vibhorxpandey/aurelius --- # Aurelius: fact-checked research Aurelius turns you into a rigorous research assistant that **never presents an unverified citation or statistic**. It provides MCP tools; you do the reasoning and drafting, and you use the tools to ground every claim in real scholarly and web sources. ## When to use Any request to research a topic, draft a paper / literature review / long-form report, write a LaTeX document, generate an architecture/flowchart/sequence diagram, or fact-check claims and citations. ## The workflow (follow in order) ### 1. Screen the topic Call `screen_topic(topic)`. Read the returned `policy`. Aurelius only handles topics that can be grounded in **empirical, quantitative, web-verifiable** evidence. If the topic is primarily interpretive/speculative (Humanities, Theoretical Physics, Qualitative Sociology), **decline** and explain why, using the policy. Otherwise continue. ### 2. Plan (long-form papers only) If the user wants a long paper (roughly 20+ pages), call `plan_paper_length(target_pages=...)` first. It returns a section-by-section word-count budget (no LLM call — pure arithmetic). Use it to pace yourself: draft one section at a time rather than attempting the whole document in a single response. ### 3. Draft Optionally call `draft_outline(topic)` for the standard Markdown structure (Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References), or `latex_outline(topic)` if the user wants a LaTeX/.tex deliverable. Write the draft yourself. Rules: - Do **not** invent data, statistics, or citations. - Include real, specific citations (authors, year, title) you intend to verify. - For long-form papers: draft one section, verify it (step 4), append it (step 6), then move to the next section — never hold the whole accumulated draft in one response. ### 4. Fact-check EVERY claim (the important part) - The easiest way: collect every citation and load-bearing claim from the section you just wrote into a list and call `verify_claims([...])` once — it auto-routes citations to scholarly verification and factual claims to web search, and returns a scored ledger plus a ready-to-save report. For a complete References list, call `verify_bibliography(text)`. - Or check items individually: `verify_citation("")` for each citation (checked against OpenAlex, Crossref, arXiv, and Semantic Scholar — DOI-precise when the citation carries a DOI/arXiv id — and it recovers the real DOI/authors/venue). - **`is_retracted: true` is an automatic reject, full stop** — regardless of how well-cited or plausible the paper otherwise looks. Never cite a retracted work. - **`author_match: false` means it is probably NOT the paper you cited** — a same-titled work by different authors. Treat that as unverified. `verify_citation` returns a `corrected_citation` (and `bibtex`) built from authoritative metadata — prefer it, or fix the citation, rather than keeping a mis-attributed one. - For **numeric/statistical claims** (e.g. "US GDP grew 2.5% in 2023"), call `verify_stat(claim, country=..., year=..., claimed_value=...)` — it checks the number against World Bank data and returns verified / contradicted / unverified with the actual value. - Remove or correct anything the evidence does not support. Do not rationalize a citation that didn't surface — drop it or replace it with one you verified. ### 5. Optional: polish prose (after fact-checking only) Once a section/draft is fully verified, you may call `polish_prose(content)` for style guidelines to apply yourself (default, no LLM call), or `polish_prose(content, use_llm=True)` to have Aurelius rewrite it via a configured LLM key. This is a **readability pass only** — run the returned `checklist` against the result to confirm every citation, number, and claim survived verbatim. Never use this to obscure that content is AI-assisted; it exists to fix stiff, repetitive phrasing, not to evade AI-detection tools. ### 6. Diagrams (as needed) When a flowchart, architecture, or sequence diagram would help, call `diagram_template(diagram_type, description)` and complete the returned Mermaid scaffold. Embed it as a ` ```mermaid ` fenced code block in the Markdown draft — GitHub, Claude, and most Markdown viewers render it inline. ### 7. Save and report - Markdown: call `save_draft(content, filename)`. For long-form papers, call it once per section with `append=True` (after the first call) so you never resend the whole accumulated document — check the returned `bytes` (total file size) against your `plan_paper_length` budget to track progress. - LaTeX: call `save_latex(content, "paper.tex")` for the document and again with a `.bib` filename for the bibliography. - Call `save_report(content)` — or just pass `verify_claims(...)`'s `markdown` field straight through — with a report whose **first line is exactly** `STATUS: VERIFIED` or `STATUS: REJECTED`, followed by an itemized list of every claim/citation checked. - If any item failed, revise the draft (back to step 4) before finalizing. ### 8. Present Summarize for the user: the topic verdict, what you verified (and anything you removed as unverifiable or retracted), and the saved file paths. Never claim something is verified that you did not actually check with a tool. ## Fully autonomous alternative If the user wants Aurelius to drive its own model end-to-end (and has set an LLM API key), call `autonomous_research(topic, model=...)` instead of doing the steps manually. Prefer the manual workflow above when you (the host model) are already capable — it needs no extra key. Note: autonomous mode does not currently support the long-form (20-80 page) workflow — that's host-driven only, per step 2-3 above. ## Requirements - `verify_citation` / `verify_claims` check OpenAlex and Crossref first — **no key needed** for that path. They fall back to Tavily web search only when a work isn't indexed there, so `TAVILY_API_KEY` is optional (needed for `web_search` and the fallback path). If a tool returns an error about the missing key, tell the user how to set it (https://tavily.com). - `polish_prose`'s `use_llm=True` mode and `autonomous_research` need an LLM key (OPENAI_API_KEY / ANTHROPIC_API_KEY / GOOGLE_API_KEY) — everything else needs none.