Research Alerts

Research Alerts

Monitor research topics and notify the user when new relevant papers appear on PubMed or bioRxiv.

When to Use

• User says "/watch TOPIC" or "监控 X 的最新文献"
• User says "有新文献告诉我" or "关注这个课题"
• User says "/watches" to list active watches
• User says "/unwatch TOPIC" to stop monitoring

How It Works

Watch Storage

Watches are stored as individual JSON files in ~/.scienceclaw/watches/:

{
  "topic": "THBS2 immunotherapy",
  "query": "THBS2 AND (immunotherapy OR immune checkpoint)",
  "created": "2026-03-10",
  "last_check": "2026-03-10",
  "interval_days": 7,
  "last_count": 47,
  "channel": "telegram"
}

File naming: ~/.scienceclaw/watches/<slug>.json (e.g., thbs2-immunotherapy.json)

Creating a Watch

When the user says /watch TOPIC:

1. Parse the topic into a PubMed search query (add appropriate MeSH terms or Boolean operators)
2. Run an initial search to get the baseline count
3. Save the watch configuration
4. Confirm: "已设置监控「TOPIC」，每周检查 PubMed 新文献。当前共 N 篇。"

mkdir -p ~/.scienceclaw/watches
cat > ~/.scienceclaw/watches/SLUG.json << 'EOF'
{"topic":"TOPIC","query":"PUBMED_QUERY","created":"DATE","last_check":"DATE","interval_days":7,"last_count":N,"channel":"current"}
EOF

Checking Watches at Session Start

At the start of each session (as part of Session Greeting):

1. List files in ~/.scienceclaw/watches/
2. For each watch, check if today - last_check >= interval_days
3. For due watches, run a PubMed search with mindate=last_check:

curl -s "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&retmode=json&retmax=5&sort=pub_date&term=QUERY&mindate=LAST_CHECK&maxdate=TODAY&datetype=pdat"

4. If new results found, fetch brief summaries and report:

📩 文献监控更新 — TOPIC
  发现 N 篇新文献（自 LAST_CHECK 以来）：
  1. "Title..." (Authors, Journal, Year) PMID: xxx
  2. "Title..." (Authors, Journal, Year) PMID: xxx
  
  要详细了解哪篇？或回复 /unwatch TOPIC 停止监控。

5. Update last_check and last_count in the watch file

Listing Watches

When the user says /watches:

for f in ~/.scienceclaw/watches/*.json; do
  python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('$f')); print(f\"  📡 {d['topic']}  (每{d['interval_days']}天, 上次检查: {d['last_check']}, 累计: {d['last_count']}篇)\")"
done

Removing a Watch

When the user says /unwatch TOPIC:

1. Find the matching watch file by topic
2. Delete it
3. Confirm: "已停止监控「TOPIC」。"

Custom Intervals

Users can specify interval: /watch TOPIC --daily, /watch TOPIC --monthly

Integration with Telegram/Discord

When the watch channel is set to "telegram" or "discord", the alert is sent proactively at session start via the configured channel. For terminal sessions, the alert appears as part of the greeting.