| name | crossref-metadata-search |
| description | Use this skill to search Crossref metadata when you need DOI-oriented citation records from the official REST API. Do not use it when you need full text or publisher-specific access controls. |
Purpose
Search Crossref works metadata and save a structured JSON result set for citation discovery and DOI lookup.
When to use
- You need DOI-rich bibliographic metadata.
- You want a publisher-agnostic metadata pass to complement OpenAlex or PubMed.
When not to use
- You need article full text.
- You need biomedical indexing fields unique to PubMed or Europe PMC.
Inputs
- Title or topic query
- Optional
--rows and --out
Outputs
- Crossref
work-list JSON payload
Requirements
- Python 3.13+
- Network access to
api.crossref.org
Procedure
- Run
python3 skills/scientific-knowledge/crossref-metadata-search/scripts/search_crossref.py --query-title "single-cell RNA-seq" --rows 3 --out skills/scientific-knowledge/crossref-metadata-search/assets/crossref_single_cell.json.
- Inspect
message.total-results and message.items.
- Use returned DOIs as anchors for follow-up literature or provenance work.
Validation
- Command exits successfully.
- Output JSON contains
message-type equal to work-list.
- At least one item is returned for a common topic.
Failure modes and fixes
- Empty results: simplify the title query.
- Rate or service issues: retry with smaller
--rows and a descriptive user agent.
Safety and limits
- Metadata only; access to full content depends on publishers.
- Respect Crossref polite-use expectations.
Examples
python3 .../search_crossref.py --query-title "spatial transcriptomics" --rows 2
Provenance
Related skills
openalex-literature-searchncbi-pubmed-search
