paper-search-cli

A CLI tool for searching and downloading academic papers from 20+ sources. Also works as a Claude Code Skill for AI-assisted research.

Features

• 20+ academic sources: arXiv, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, CrossRef, OpenAlex, CORE, bioRxiv, medRxiv, and more
• Concurrent search: searches multiple sources in parallel with automatic deduplication
• Smart download: multi-stage fallback chain (source -> OA repositories -> Unpaywall -> Sci-Hub)
• PDF text extraction: download and extract text from papers in one step
• JSON output: machine-readable output for scripting and AI integration
• Claude Code Skill: use as a slash command in Claude Code
• Auto-publish: every push to main auto-bumps version and publishes to PyPI

Installation

pip (recommended)

pip install paper-search-cli

uv

uv tool install paper-search-cli

npx (via GitHub Packages)

npx @openags/paper-search-cli search "transformer architecture"

Requires Python 3.10+ with paper-search-cli installed.

From source

git clone https://github.com/openags/paper-search-cli.git
cd paper-search-cli
uv sync

Docker

docker build -t paper-search .
docker run paper-search search "transformer architecture"

Usage

Search papers

# Search all sources
paper-search search "transformer architecture"

# Search specific sources
paper-search search "quantum computing" --sources arxiv,semantic --max-results 5

# Filter by year (Semantic Scholar)
paper-search search "large language models" --sources semantic --year 2023-2024

# JSON output (for scripting / AI tools)
paper-search search "CRISPR" --json

Download a paper

paper-search download 2106.12345 --source arxiv
paper-search download 2106.12345 --source arxiv --output-dir ./papers

Download with fallback chain

paper-search download-fallback 2106.12345 --source arxiv \
  --doi 10.48550/arXiv.2106.12345 --title "Paper Title"

Read (download + extract text)

paper-search read 2106.12345 --source arxiv

List available sources

paper-search sources

Claude Code Skill

This tool can be used as a Claude Code Skill for AI-assisted academic research.

Setup

Copy the skill file to your project:

mkdir -p .claude/commands
cp claude-skill/paper-search.md .claude/commands/paper-search.md

Or for global access (all projects):

mkdir -p ~/.claude/commands
cp claude-skill/paper-search.md ~/.claude/commands/paper-search.md

Then in Claude Code, use:

/paper-search transformer architecture in NLP

Available Sources

Source	Search	Download	Read	Notes
arXiv	yes	yes	yes	Open API, reliable
PubMed	yes	no	no	Metadata only
bioRxiv	yes	yes	yes	Category-based search
medRxiv	yes	yes	yes	Category-based search
Google Scholar	limited	no	no	Bot-detection active
IACR	yes	yes	yes	Cryptography focus
Semantic Scholar	yes	OA	OA	Year filter support
CrossRef	yes	no	no	DOI metadata
OpenAlex	yes	no	no	Broad metadata
PMC	yes	OA	OA	Open access only
CORE	yes	yes	yes	API key recommended
Europe PMC	yes	OA	OA	Open access only
dblp	yes	no	no	CS bibliography
OpenAIRE	yes	no	no	EU research
CiteSeerX	limited	yes	limited	Intermittent
DOAJ	yes	limited	limited	Open access journals
BASE	limited	yes	yes	OAI-PMH based
Zenodo	yes	yes	yes	Record-dependent
HAL	yes	yes	yes	French archives
SSRN	limited	limited	limited	Metadata only
Unpaywall	DOI	no	no	DOI lookup only
Sci-Hub	limited	yes	no	Optional fallback
IEEE	key	key	key	Requires API key
ACM	key	key	key	Requires API key

Environment Variables

All environment variables are optional. Set them in a .env file or export them.

Variable	Purpose
PAPER_SEARCH_UNPAYWALL_EMAIL	Required for Unpaywall DOI resolution
PAPER_SEARCH_CORE_API_KEY	Better rate limits for CORE
PAPER_SEARCH_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY	Better rate limits for Semantic Scholar
PAPER_SEARCH_ZENODO_ACCESS_TOKEN	Access embargoed Zenodo records
PAPER_SEARCH_DOAJ_API_KEY	Higher rate limits for DOAJ
PAPER_SEARCH_GOOGLE_SCHOLAR_PROXY_URL	Proxy for Google Scholar
PAPER_SEARCH_IEEE_API_KEY	Enable IEEE Xplore
PAPER_SEARCH_ACM_API_KEY	Enable ACM Digital Library

Legacy PAPER_SEARCH_MCP_* prefix is also supported for backward compatibility.

Contributing

git clone https://github.com/openags/paper-search-cli.git
cd paper-search-cli
uv sync
uv run python -m pytest tests/ -x -q

Every push to main automatically bumps the patch version and publishes to PyPI.

License

MIT