traversing-citations

name	traversing-citations
description	Backward (references) and forward (citing papers) traversal via OpenAlex, with relevance filtering and deduplication
when_to_use	After finding a relevant paper (score >= 7). When you need related work. When following references or citing papers. When building a citation graph.
version	2.0.0

Traversing Citation Networks

RC native tools — this skill's pipeline ships as four built-in RC tools. Call them directly; do not shell out to any rp.py script or write curl:

• rp_search({ query, limit?, min_year? }) — Scopus relevance search enriched with OpenAlex abstracts + OA PDF links. The Elsevier key is built in.
• rp_abstracts({ dois }) — batch abstracts + OA links for a DOI list (OpenAlex, no key).
• rp_cite({ doi, direction?, limit? }) — citation traversal (direction: both / backward / forward).
• rp_fulltext({ doi, out? }) — OA full text (Elsevier ScienceDirect OA → OpenAlex OA fallback); pass out to also save the text to a file.

Results return inline as JSON (there is no --json <file> flag). To persist a result set, save the returned JSON with the workspace file tools.

Overview

Follow citations backward (a paper's references) and forward (papers citing it) through OpenAlex, driven by rp_cite.

Core principle: Only expand papers that already scored >= 7, and only enqueue citations that pass relevance filtering. Filter before traversing to avoid explosion.

Why OpenAlex, not Scopus or Semantic Scholar: the personal Scopus key cannot return references or run forward-citation (REFEID) searches — both 403. Semantic Scholar was dropped from this pipeline: in testing it returned data: null for the references of papers it had clearly indexed (e.g. it reported 18 references but served none), failing silently. OpenAlex returned the full reference list for those same papers. OpenAlex is the single citation source here.

How to Traverse

One command, both directions

rp_cite "10.1056/NEJMoa2300696" --direction both --limit 50 \
   

Returns:

{
  "seed": {"doi": "...", "title": "...", "openalex_id": "W..."},
  "backward": [ {normalized work: doi,title,year,abstract,cited_by,oa_pdf_url}, ... ],
  "forward":  [ {normalized work, sorted by cited_by desc}, ... ]
}

• backward = referenced_works (what this paper cites), resolved to full metadata with abstracts in batch.
• forward = papers whose cites field includes the seed, sorted by citation count (most-cited citing papers first — usually the highest-signal follow-ups).

Both arrays already carry abstracts, so you can score immediately with evaluating-paper-relevance without another fetch.

Filtering before enqueue

For each returned citation, score for relevance to the query (use the same rubric as evaluating-paper-relevance). Cheap pre-filter signals already in the record:

• Title contains query keywords → strong
• Abstract contains query terms → strong
• Recent (forward citations < 3 yrs old) → prioritize
• High cited_by → prioritize

Only enqueue citations scoring >= 5. Then evaluate enqueued papers normally.

Deduplicate

Before enqueuing, check papers-reviewed.json by DOI; skip if present. After evaluating any traversed paper, add it to papers-reviewed.json regardless of score, so it is never re-processed from another seed.

Record the relationship in citations/citation-graph.json:

{ "10.1056/nejmoa2300696": { "references": ["10.x/...", ...], "cited_by": ["10.y/...", ...] } }

Use only citation-graph.json for relationships and SUMMARY.md for findings — do not create ad-hoc files like forward_citation_dois.txt.

Smart Traversal Limits

• Expand only seeds scoring >= 7.
• Enqueue only citations scoring >= 5.
• Depth <= 2 levels (seed → its citations → their citations, then stop).
• Checkpoint with the user after every 50 total papers.
• --limit caps each direction per call; raise deliberately, not by default.

Coverage Notes (honest limits)

• OpenAlex reference coverage is high but not universal — a few works expose no referenced_works. When backward is empty for a paper that clearly has references, note it (⚠️ No references in OpenAlex) and continue; do not assume zero references.
• Forward-citation counts track OpenAlex's graph, which can lag the very newest papers by weeks.

Common Mistakes

• Hand-writing curl / using Semantic Scholar → use rp_cite (OpenAlex). SS is removed.
• Following all citations → exponential blow-up; filter to >= 5 first.
• Not deduping → check papers-reviewed.json before and after; add every evaluated paper.
• Going too deep → cap at 2 levels and checkpoint at 50 papers.
• Treating empty backward as truth → may be a coverage gap; flag it.

Next Steps

Evaluate enqueued papers with evaluating-paper-relevance; update SUMMARY.md and citation-graph.json; checkpoint at 50 papers.