| name | verify-citation |
| description | Confirm a paper actually exists (arXiv / Semantic Scholar / OpenAlex) before citing it. Use before writing any new citation. |
/verify-citation
Verify that a paper exists before writing it as a citation.
Inspired by the citation-verification patterns in
flonat/claude-research and
Imbad0202/academic-research-skills.
When to use
Run /verify-citation before writing any new citation into a .tex, .bib,
or .md file. If the user asks you to "add a reference to X", run this skill
first — do not write the citation until verification passes.
Usage
/verify-citation "Author, Title, Year"
/verify-citation "the paper we discussed about spectral geometry"
/verify-citation (no argument — verify all citations in the last assistant turn)
Steps
Step 1 — Extract the citation.
If an argument is given, use it. Otherwise, extract every paper reference from
the last assistant turn (titles, author–year pairs, DOIs, arXiv IDs).
Step 2 — Search.
For each citation, search at least two of:
- arXiv:
https://arxiv.org/search/?searchtype=all&query=<title+author>
- Semantic Scholar:
https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search?query=<title>
- OpenAlex:
https://api.openalex.org/works?search=<title>
Use WebSearch or WebFetch to run the searches.
Step 3 — Report verdict.
| Result | Action |
|---|
| Found on 2+ sources, title and authors match | VERIFIED — write the citation |
| Found on 1 source, minor title variation | LIKELY — note the discrepancy, write with caution |
| Found on 0 sources, or title/author mismatch | UNVERIFIED — do NOT write the citation |
For UNVERIFIED: say "I cannot confirm this paper exists. Do you have a DOI or
arXiv ID?" Do not invent an alternative. Do not write a citation that cannot be
verified.
Step 4 — Write the citation (VERIFIED and LIKELY only).
Use the metadata from the verified source (exact title, exact authors, correct
year). Never reconstruct citation details from memory — use what the database
returned.
Anti-patterns to avoid
- Do not assume a paper exists because the title sounds familiar.
- Do not cite a paper you read during training without verifying it still exists
and the details are correct.
- Do not mix elements from different papers into one citation ("vibe citing" —
the hardest fabrication to detect).
- Do not mark something VERIFIED if you only searched once and found one result
with a slightly different title.
CLAUDE.md instruction
Add this to your project's CLAUDE.md to make this the default:
Never write a citation into any file without first running /verify-citation.
If you cannot confirm a paper exists on Semantic Scholar, arXiv, or OpenAlex,
say so explicitly and wait for a DOI or arXiv ID from me.
