alterlab-citation-graph

name	alterlab-citation-graph
description	Free, key-less ResearchRabbit analog — builds a citation and co-citation graph around one or more seed papers using the OpenAlex API. Walks both directions of the citation network (works the seed cites and works that cite the seed), ranks the discovered neighbourhood by co-citation strength and bibliographic coupling to surface the papers most central to a topic's literature, and exports the network as GraphML (Gephi / Cytoscape / yEd) and JSON. Use when mapping a literature landscape, finding seminal or highly co-cited papers from a seed DOI, snowballing a reference network, building a citation map / co-citation analysis, or visualizing how a research area's papers connect — no API key required (polite mailto only). Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.
license	MIT
allowed-tools	Read Write Edit Bash(python:*)
compatibility	No API key required. Optional OPENALEX_MAILTO (or --mailto) for the OpenAlex polite pool. Needs network access to api.openalex.org. Stdlib-only — runs under bare `uv run python`.
metadata	{"skill-author":"AlterLab","version":"1.0.0","last_updated":"2026-06-06"}

Citation Graph — Free ResearchRabbit Analog

Overview

A free, account-free, key-less alternative to ResearchRabbit and Connected Papers. Given a seed DOI (or several seeds), this skill walks the OpenAlex citation network outward in both directions and assembles a citation / co-citation graph of the local literature:

• Backward edges — the works each seed cites (its referenced_works).
• Forward edges — the works that cite each seed (its cited_by set).

It then ranks the discovered neighbourhood by co-citation strength — how many of the seed papers a candidate work connects to, via shared references, shared citers, and direct seed links — surfacing the papers most central to the topic, just like ResearchRabbit's "Similar Work" panels. The whole graph is exported as GraphML (open in Gephi, Cytoscape, yEd, or networkx) and JSON (for downstream code).

OpenAlex is fully open and requires no API key. The only etiquette is the polite pool: pass a contact email (--mailto or OPENALEX_MAILTO) and OpenAlex serves you faster.

When to Use This Skill

• Map a literature landscape from a starting paper — "I have one key paper, show me the field around it."
• Find seminal / highly co-cited papers in an area without manually chasing references.
• Snowball a reference network (forward and backward citation chasing) for a review.
• Build a citation map or run a co-citation analysis for a methods/visualization figure.
• Visualize how a research area connects — export to Gephi/Cytoscape for a network figure.

This is the graph-building / discovery tool. It is not a backend router for free-text research queries (that is alterlab-research-lookup) and not a citation/metadata fact-checker (that is alterlab-citation-verifier).

Quick Start

# One seed DOI, default 1-hop walk, write both formats next to a basename:
uv run python scripts/build_graph.py \
    --seed 10.1038/nphys1170 \
    --mailto [e-mail] \
    --out graph/seed1
# -> graph/seed1.graphml  +  graph/seed1.json