Skip to content
Get packs

Paper Lookup

Search 18 scholarly databases for papers, citations, full text and open-access PDFs with traceable provenance.

Source Download skill
Repository
K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
Stars
55,780
Licence
MIT
Files
15 files

What it does

This skill teaches an AI agent to search scholarly databases such as PubMed, arXiv, OpenAlex, Crossref and Semantic Scholar to find papers, preprints, citations, open-access full text and journal open-access status. The agent picks the right database for the request, reads a reference file on each API's quirks, and reports what it queried so another person can repeat the search. It also warns when a database returns an empty or partial result, since silent gaps can look like 'no papers exist'.

Great for

  • Researchers doing a literature review who want reproducible, sourced search results
  • Students looking up a paper by DOI, PMID or arXiv ID and finding its open-access PDF
  • Analysts tracing who cites a paper or mapping an author's publications

Skip it if

  • Final verification of citations or retractions without checking the source, because the skill itself warns that API responses can be wrong while returning HTTP 200
  • Clinical or medical decisions, since results are literature lookups only and do not assess study quality
  • Large exhaustive pulls (over about 1,000 records or 50 calls), which the skill says require asking first

Try asking

  • “Find recent papers on CRISPR off-target effects in PubMed and Europe PMC and list the provenance of each search.”
  • “Look up the DOI 10.1038/nature12373 and tell me where I can get the open-access PDF.”
  • “Who cites this arXiv paper? Show the citation graph from Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex.”
  • “List all medRxiv preprints by this author since 2024 and reconcile the count against the API total.”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Paper LookupInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 15 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    paper-lookup.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip paper-lookup.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip paper-lookup.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Give a specific identifier (DOI, PMID, arXiv ID) or a clear date range and field, since vague queries like 'recent' or common author names produce ambiguous results.
  • Ask the agent to report the databases and endpoints it queried, so you can check that no major source was skipped.
  • Treat abstracts and full text returned from the APIs as untrusted content, and verify key findings against the publisher's page before relying on them.

What's inside

  • references/arxiv.md
  • references/biorxiv.md
  • references/biostudies.md
  • references/core.md
  • references/crossref.md
  • references/doaj.md
  • references/europepmc.md
  • references/figshare.md
  • references/medrxiv.md
  • references/openalex.md
  • references/opencitations.md
  • references/pmc.md
  • references/pubmed.md
  • references/pubtator.md
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.