backing-claims

name

backing-claims

description

Back factual and empirical claims with literature you have verified actually supports the claim, and record each citation's provenance (how found, why picked, quote). Use proactively when: (1) adding OR reusing a citation, page number, or attribution for a factual/empirical claim in prose, .tex, .nw, or notes — including a cite carried over from slides, notes, a draft, or the existing .bib (an inherited citation is NOT pre-verified), (2) writing prose that attributes a claim to a source or recounts an example ("X reports/found that…", a paraphrase, or a page locator), (3) the user asks to "find a reference", "cite this", or "is this citation correct", (4) writing a related-work, background, or claims section, (5) the user mentions scholar, BibTeX, DOI, arXiv, OpenAlex, Crossref, or a literature search, (6) reviewing a .bib for unsupported references. Trigger BEFORE writing the citation. Complements writing-crypto and latex-writing (citation markup); this skill owns finding/verifying/justifying the reference.

Backing Claims with Verified References

Back every claim with scientific literature you have read and verified, and record how you got there. A citation is a load-bearing claim: it asserts that a specific source supports a specific statement. This skill makes that assertion auditable.

Core principle

Never cite from memory, from a title, or from a search-result snippet. Open the source, find the passage that supports the claim, and record it. A reference that is merely about the same topic is not support — the quote must entail the specific claim, at the claim's scope and strength.

Corollary: the search tool is free, the documentation is not. Use any source you like — scholar, Google Scholar, a publisher database, WebSearch, a colleague's tip — but every reference must carry a reproducible FOUND-VIA.

Corollary: an inherited citation is not a verified one. A key that already exists in the .bib, or one carried over from slides, notes, a draft, or an earlier version, asserts support you have not personally checked. Verify it against the source the first time you commit it to prose — and re-verify every page number and every "X reports/found/shows that…" attribution you write, since those are fresh claims even when the citation key is old. "The cite was already there" is not evidence that it is correct. Trigger this skill while writing the sentence, not only when a reviewer later asks.

This skill owns find → verify → record. It hands the citation markup off to writing-crypto (biblatex \autocite/\ac) and latex-writing (\cite family). Do not duplicate that guidance here.

The find → verify → record protocol

1. State the claim precisely

Write the claim as one sentence and note its scope (population, domain), strength (does it say causes, correlates, can, always?), and whether it needs a primary source (an original finding/definition) or a survey (an established consensus). The reference must match all three.

2. Find — prefer scholar, but any source counts

scholar is preferred because it records the query for you and searches several databases at once. See references/scholar-cookbook.md for the non-interactive recipes (search, rq, enrich, verify, prov, providers, syntax, notes, pdf).

scholar search "authenticated encryption generic composition" -p s2 -p dblp -f bibtex
scholar rq "How do LLMs support novice programming?" -p openalex -p dblp --count 20

To get the BibTeX already wrapped in provenance blocks with FOUND-VIA pre-filled from the query, use -f bibtex+prov (this is the easiest start — you then fill in CLAIM/PICKED/QUOTE/VERIFIED):

scholar search "authenticated encryption generic composition" -p s2 -p dblp -f bibtex+prov

Any complementary source is allowed (Google Scholar, a publisher site, WebSearch

• WebFetch, Crossref/DOI lookup, the deep-research skill for hard/contested claims). Whatever you use, capture the query/source verbatim so FOUND-VIA can be reproduced. references/scholar-cookbook.md shows how to phrase each source's FOUND-VIA line.

scholar snowball, scholar tuxedo, and scholar search --review are interactive TUIs — do not drive them from an agent; use the non-interactive subcommands instead.

3. Screen and pick

Compare the top results and record why this one: primary source vs survey, canonical/most-cited, reputable venue, appropriate year, closest match to the claim's scope. When the choice is non-obvious, note the alternatives you rejected and why — that reasoning is the PICKED field.

4. Verify applicability (the double-check)

Read the actual source, not just the title:

scholar enrich "<session>"            # fill in missing abstracts via DOI
scholar pdf open "<pdf-url>"          # download + open full text
scholar pdf quote "<pdf-url>" --claim "<the claim>"   # surface candidate QUOTE passages
scholar verify "<session>"            # flag retracted/corrected/superseded papers
# or WebFetch the publisher/arXiv page to read the relevant section

scholar pdf quote proposes candidate supporting passages (with location) — the judgement stays yours; read the passage and confirm it entails the claim. scholar verify runs the currency/retraction test for you via Crossref.

Extract a verbatim passage that supports the claim, and apply the tests in references/verification-checklist.md (scope/strength match, primary vs secondary "citation of a citation", over-claiming, contested/retracted work, predatory venue, quote actually entails the claim). If the source does not genuinely support the claim, discard it and return to step 2 — do not weaken the quote to fit. Escalate hard or contested claims to the deep-research skill.

5. Record provenance, then emit the citation

Write the provenance comment block immediately above the BibTeX entry, then write the citation in the project's style (defer to writing-crypto / latex-writing). Full schema and worked examples: references/provenance-format.md.

% === provenance: BellareNamprempre2000 ===
% CLAIM: Authenticated encryption provides both confidentiality and integrity.
% FOUND-VIA: scholar search "authenticated encryption generic composition" -p s2 -p dblp
% PICKED: canonical, most-cited primary source that defines the notion (not a survey).
% QUOTE (§1): "an authenticated encryption scheme ... provides both privacy and authenticity"
% VERIFIED: full-text PDF read; applies because it defines AE as exactly C+I.
% DATE: 2026-06-24
@inproceedings{BellareNamprempre2000, ... }

Required fields: CLAIM, FOUND-VIA, PICKED, QUOTE, VERIFIED (DATE recommended). You do not have to type the skeleton by hand:

scholar search "..." -f bibtex+prov     # entries pre-wrapped, FOUND-VIA + DATE filled
scholar prov found-via "<paper-id>"     # reproducible FOUND-VIA line for one paper
scholar prov export refs.bib --in-place # write notes' provenance blocks above entries
scholar prov import refs.bib            # pull .bib provenance blocks back into notes

Validate any .bib you touch:

scripts/check_provenance.py refs.bib        # exit 1 if any entry lacks provenance
scripts/check_metadata.py refs.bib [...]    # cross-check every DOI entry's
                                            # title/authors/year against Crossref

Self- and companion-references are references too. Author names and metadata for the user's own or companion papers are copied from the source repo's \author{} block, never written from memory — a fabricated co-author name is the canonical failure here. After any bib work, run check_metadata.py over the touched files; treat diacritic and subtitle differences as benign, investigate everything else.

Mirror the searches into a paper appendix

When the citations belong to a paper, the FOUND-VIA records must also surface as a search-and-verification protocol appendix in the paper itself (like vt-prog-misconceptions' literature-protocol.tex and vt-debug's search-protocol.tex): one paragraph or list per search episode, with the verbatim queries, the date, the source/API used, what was retained, and — equally important — what was discarded as unverifiable or substituted. State the find→verify→record protocol once at the top and point to the per-reference provenance blocks in the .bib. Run each round's searches under one named scholar session per paper (search -n, decisions via sessions decide) and commit the session's sessions export output (bib/csv/latex) to the paper repo (e.g. literature-review/) — the exported session is the appendix's audit record. Update the appendix in the same commit as the search; a search that is only recorded in bib comments is not yet documented.

Anti-patterns

✗ Wrong	✓ Right
Cite a paper by its title or abstract snippet.	Read the source; paste the verbatim QUOTE that supports the claim.
Cite a survey for a specific primary finding.	Cite the primary source; use surveys only for "it is well established that…".
QUOTE is on-topic but doesn't entail the claim.	QUOTE matches the claim's scope and strength, or pick a better source.
No record of how the paper was found.	FOUND-VIA records the exact, reproducible query/source.
Over-claim beyond what the source shows.	Match the claim's strength to the evidence, or soften the prose.

Reference files

File	Content	Search patterns
references/provenance-format.md	Full provenance schema, field semantics, worked examples, migrating a scholar rq session into FOUND-VIA	FOUND-VIA, QUOTE, VERIFIED, multi-line
references/verification-checklist.md	Applicability tests for deciding whether a source really supports a claim	scope, primary vs secondary, over-claim, retraction, venue
references/scholar-cookbook.md	Non-interactive scholar recipes (incl. bibtex+prov, prov, verify, pdf quote) + how to phrase FOUND-VIA for non-scholar sources	bibtex+prov, prov found-via, pdf quote, verify, WebFetch, Crossref
references/scholar-enhancements.md	Record of shipped provenance support (#49–#53) and a place for future ideas	shipped, gh issue, future ideas

Workflow checklist

• Claim stated with scope and strength
• Found via a recorded, reproducible query/source
• Picked with a written rationale among alternatives
• Source actually read (abstract or full text), not just the title
• Verbatim supporting quote captured, entails the claim
• Provenance block written above the entry; check_provenance.py passes
• Citation emitted in the project's markup style (writing-crypto / latex-writing)