| name | paper-retriever-institutional |
| description | Paywalled-access backend for paper-retriever. Retrieves a paywalled paper's PDF through an institutional / library subscription (a library proxy such as EZproxy or OpenAthens, or an institutional login), given an identifier (DOI/URL) and the target paper directory name. Invoked by paper-retriever when open-access channels fail. Enable this skill only if the install has institutional access configured. |
| argument-hint | <doi-or-identifier> <dirname> |
| disable-model-invocation | false |
| compatibility | Claude Code, Codex CLI, and Gemini CLI. Requires browser automation and configured institutional/library access. |
Paper Retriever — institutional access: $ARGUMENTS
This is a paywalled-access backend invoked by paper-retriever when open-access
channels fail. It is a pluggable access method: one of possibly several
paper-retriever-* access skills (sci-hub, institutional, …). Enable this one only if
the install actually has institutional or library subscription access — otherwise it has
nothing to resolve against and should stay disabled.
Contract
- Inputs:
<identifier> — a DOI/URL naming the intended paper — and <dirname> —
the canonical paper directory paper-retriever already planned (e.g.
Author_Year_ShortTitle).
- Job: place the intended paper's PDF at
./papers/<dirname>/paper.pdf. Nothing
else — paper-retriever materializes metadata.json and verifies after you return.
- On success: report that
./papers/<dirname>/paper.pdf now holds the intended
paper. On miss (no access to this title, or institutional access not configured):
report failure cleanly so paper-retriever can try the next access method.
Steps
- Resolve the paywalled DOI/URL through the configured institutional route — typically a
library proxy that rewrites the publisher URL (e.g.
https://doi-org.<proxy-host>/<doi> for EZproxy, or the OpenAthens redirector), or an
authenticated institutional session in the browser.
- From the proxied publisher page, locate the full-text PDF link (the publisher's
"Download PDF" / "Full text" control).
- Create the paper directory and download the PDF:
mkdir -p "./papers/<dirname>" && curl -L -o "./papers/<dirname>/paper.pdf" "PROXIED_PDF_URL" 2>&1
(or save via the browser's print/download if the link requires the authenticated
session).
Verify the result is a real PDF (file "./papers/<dirname>/paper.pdf" reports "PDF
document", size > 100KB) and that it is the intended paper before reporting success.
If it is wrong or missing, report a miss and remove any bad file
(rm -f "./papers/<dirname>/paper.pdf").
