| name | papers-skill |
| description | Skill for academic research workflows: search Semantic Scholar (200M+ papers), inspect citations, download arXiv PDFs, and extract PDF text. Bundles a self-contained Python CLI. |
| category | research |
| risk | safe |
| source | community |
| source_repo | xwmxcz/papers-skill |
| source_type | community |
| date_added | 2026-06-11 |
| author | xwmxcz |
| tags | ["research","academic","papers","citations","arxiv","semantic-scholar","pdf"] |
| tools | ["claude-code","antigravity","cursor","gemini-cli","codex-cli","opencode"] |
| license | MIT |
| license_source | https://github.com/xwmxcz/papers-skill/blob/main/LICENSE |
Papers Skill
Overview
Papers Skill turns a coding agent into a literature-research assistant. It
orchestrates a bundled Python CLI (scripts/papers.py) that hits the free
Semantic Scholar and arXiv APIs, downloads arXiv PDFs, and extracts text with
PyMuPDF. The agent decides which subcommand to invoke and how to combine
results into a literature scan, a deep read of one paper, an impact analysis,
or a reading list.
This skill is the Skill-mode port of the
papers-mcp MCP server by the same
author. Both projects share the same feature set; this one ships as a
Claude Code plugin so it can be installed with a single command and needs no
long-running MCP process.
When to Use This Skill
- Use when the user asks to search academic papers by topic, author, or venue.
- Use when the user names a specific paper (by DOI, arXiv ID, or title) and
wants metadata, the abstract, the TL;DR, or its reference list.
- Use when the user wants to find work that cites a known paper (impact
analysis, follow-up tracking).
- Use when the user wants to download an arXiv PDF and have it summarized.
- Use when the user asks to build a reading list around a topic.
Do Not Use This Skill When
- The user wants paywalled non-arXiv full text. This skill cannot bypass
publisher paywalls; it can only fetch arXiv PDFs and metadata everywhere.
- The user wants OCR over scanned PDFs. PyMuPDF extracts embedded text only;
scanned image-PDFs return the fallback message and need a separate OCR step.
- The user wants real-time citation alerts or RSS-style watching. This skill
is request-driven.
How It Works
Step 1: Verify dependencies
Three Python packages are required. The skill should check once per session,
using the same interpreter to import-check and install so the dependency
check and install target stay in sync:
python -c "import httpx, arxiv, fitz" 2>&1 || python -m pip install httpx arxiv PyMuPDF
If python is not on PATH, fall back to py (Windows launcher) or the
absolute interpreter path — and remember to invoke pip via the same
interpreter, e.g. py -m pip install httpx arxiv PyMuPDF.
Step 2: Invoke the bundled CLI
The script lives at ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/papers-skill/scripts/papers.py
and is bundled with this skill (no separate install needed). Always quote the
path so it survives spaces.
python <subcommand> [args]
