Pi Academic Search

Multi-source academic paper search, lookup, citation analysis, and PDF download for Pi coding agent.

Search across Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref, arXiv, DBLP, and PubMed — merged and deduplicated. Look up papers by DOI, arXiv ID, or PMID. Explore citation graphs. Download open-access PDFs.

Install

pi install npm:@duskmoon/pi-academic-search

Works immediately with no API keys — Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref, arXiv, DBLP, and PubMed all support keyless access. Add API keys for better rate limits and Unpaywall for PDF downloads.

OpenAlex API Key

OpenAlex offers a free API key (register at openalex.org, then get your key at openalex.org/settings/api). Adding an API key increases your daily request budget by 10x. The key works alongside the mailto polite pool mechanism — both can be configured simultaneously.

Quick Start

// Search papers across default sources (semantic, openalex, arxiv, dblp, crossref)
academic_search({ query: "transformer attention mechanism" })

// Search with arXiv category filtering
academic_search({ query: "mixture of experts", categories: ["cs.CL", "cs.LG"] })

// Auto-route DOI query to direct lookup
academic_search({ query: "10.1145/3292500.3330919" })

// Search specific sources with filters
academic_search({ query: "quantum computing", sources: ["arxiv", "semantic"], year: "2023-2024", limit: 5 })

// Look up a paper by ID
paper_lookup({ id: "ARXIV:1706.03762" })
paper_lookup({ id: "10.1145/3292500.3330919" })
paper_lookup({ id: "PMID:12345678" })

// Get citations or references
paper_citations({ id: "ARXIV:1706.03762", direction: "citing", limit: 20 })

// Download an open-access PDF
download_pdf({ arxivId: "1706.03762" })
download_pdf({ doi: "10.1145/3292500.3330919", outputDir: "./papers" })
download_pdf({ resultId: "abc12345" }) // from a previous academic_search

Tools

academic_search

Search academic papers across multiple sources. Returns merged, deduplicated results. Supports ID-based auto-routing, arXiv category filtering, and abstract enrichment.

academic_search({
  query: "transformer attention mechanism",
  sources: ["semantic", "openalex", "arxiv"],  // optional, defaults to semantic, openalex, arxiv, dblp, crossref
  limit: 10,                                    // per source, default 10, max 50
  year: "2020-2024",                            // optional year filter
  openAccessOnly: false,                        // optional OA filter
  categories: ["cs.CL", "cs.LG"],              // optional, arXiv categories
  enrich: true                                  // optional, fill missing abstracts (default true)
})

// ID auto-routing — pass a DOI or arXiv ID as query
academic_search({ query: "10.1145/3292500.3330919" })
academic_search({ query: "2301.07041" })

Parameter	Description
query	Search query string, DOI, or arXiv ID (auto-routed to direct lookup)
sources	Single source or array of sources. Default: semantic, openalex, arxiv, dblp, crossref
limit	Max results per source (1–50, default 10)
year	Year filter: "2023" or "2020-2024" range (applied post-dedupe)
openAccessOnly	Only return open access papers
categories	arXiv categories to restrict results (e.g. ["cs.CL","cs.LG"])
enrich	Auto-fill missing abstracts from Semantic Scholar batch API (default true)

Results are stored with a unique ID (TTL 1 hour) for reference by other tools.

paper_lookup

Look up a single paper by identifier. Returns a detailed Markdown card with abstract, metadata, and all known identifiers.

paper_lookup({ id: "10.1145/3292500.3330919" })
paper_lookup({ id: "ARXIV:1706.03762" })
paper_lookup({ id: "PMID:12345678" })
paper_lookup({ id: "S2:abc123def" })
paper_lookup({ id: "OPENALEX:W2741809807" })

Supported ID formats:

• DOI: bare 10.xxxx/yyyy, doi:10.xxxx/yyyy, https://doi.org/10.xxxx/yyyy
• arXiv: ARXIV:2301.07041, bare 2301.07041, old-style cs/0501001
• PubMed: PMID:12345678
• Semantic Scholar: S2:abc123def
• OpenAlex: OPENALEX:W2741809807

paper_citations

Get citing papers or references for a paper. Only Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex support citation queries.

paper_citations({ id: "ARXIV:1706.03762", direction: "citing" })
paper_citations({ id: "10.1145/3292500.3330919", direction: "references", limit: 50 })

Parameter	Description
id	Paper identifier (any supported format)
direction	"citing" = papers citing this one; "references" = papers this one cites
limit	Max results (default 20, max 100)

download_pdf

Download an open-access PDF to local disk. ⚠️ Writes files to the local filesystem.

download_pdf({ arxivId: "1706.03762" })
download_pdf({ doi: "10.1145/3292500.3330919" })
download_pdf({ resultId: "abc12345", outputDir: "./papers" })

Parameter	Description
doi	Paper DOI
arxivId	arXiv paper ID
resultId	Result ID from a previous academic_search call
outputDir	Output directory (default: ./papers)

At least one of doi, arxivId, or resultId is required.

Download chain priority:

1. arXiv direct link (if arXiv ID available) — highest priority
2. Unpaywall OA lookup (if DOI available and Unpaywall email configured)
3. Direct PDF URL from paper metadata (from search results or lookup)

Safety: Validates response content-type or %PDF magic bytes before writing. 100 MB size limit (streaming check). 60-second download timeout. Existing files get a random suffix to avoid overwrites. All download URLs are validated against SSRF: only HTTPS allowed, DNS-resolved IPs are checked for private/loopback/link-local ranges, and redirects are followed manually with per-hop validation (max 5 hops).

Output directory boundary: By default, outputDir must resolve within the current working directory. Set downloadAllowOutsideCwd: true in config to allow writing outside cwd. Paths starting with ~ are expanded to the home directory.

Commands

/academic-search

Interactive configuration wizard for providers and credentials. Opens a selection menu to configure each provider's API key or email.

Configuration

Config file: ~/.pi/academic-search.json (all fields optional).

{
  "semanticScholarApiKey": "$S2_API_KEY",
  "ncbiApiKey": "$NCBI_API_KEY",
  "coreApiKey": null,
  "crossrefMailto": "me@example.com",
  "unpaywallEmail": "$UNPAYWALL_EMAIL",
  "openAlexMailto": null,
  "openAlexApiKey": null,
  "defaultSources": ["semantic", "openalex", "arxiv", "crossref", "dblp"],
  "defaultLimit": 10,
  "downloadDir": "./papers",
  "downloadAllowOutsideCwd": false,
  "proxy": null
}

All credential fields support:

• Literal: "sk-xxx" — plain text value
• Environment variable: "$VAR" or "${VAR}" — read from environment
• Command: "!op read op://Private/..." — execute local command, use stdout
• Escape: "$$..." or "$!..." — literal $ or ! prefix

Environment Variables

Variable	Used By	Purpose
S2_API_KEY	Semantic Scholar	API key for higher rate limits
NCBI_API_KEY	PubMed	API key for higher rate limits
CROSSREF_MAILTO	Crossref	Email for Polite Pool access
UNPAYWALL_EMAIL	Unpaywall	Email required for PDF download (free, 100k/day)
OPENALEX_MAILTO	OpenAlex	Email for polite access
OPENALEX_API_KEY	OpenAlex	API key for 10x daily request budget

When a config value is null/absent, the corresponding environment variable is tried automatically.

Providers

Provider	Search	Lookup	Citations	Key Required	Rate Limit (no key)
Semantic Scholar	✓	✓	✓	Optional	~3s interval
OpenAlex	✓	✓	✓	Optional (API key or mailto)	Default limits
Crossref	✓	✓	—	Optional (mailto)	Default limits
arXiv	✓	✓	—	No	3s interval
DBLP	✓	—	—	No	~1s interval
PubMed	✓	✓	—	Optional	~350ms interval

License

MIT

Provider Health Status

The extension passively records the health status of each provider during normal use — no extra requests are made. When a provider consistently returns errors (e.g., 403 for invalid credentials, 429 for rate limiting), a brief health indicator is shown in the /academic-search status display.

Health indicators:

• ⚠ HTTP 403 (凭据可能无效) · 5分钟前 — authentication may be invalid
• ⏳ 429 限速 · 2分钟前 — rate limited
• ⚠ 503 服务端错误 · 1分钟前 — server-side issue
• ⚠ 网络/超时 · 30秒前 — network connectivity issue

Health data is stored in academic-search-health.json alongside the config file (e.g., ~/.pi/academic-search-health.json). It resets to healthy status once a successful request is made.

Quality Pack Features

429 Retry with Backoff

All provider requests automatically retry on HTTP 429 (rate limit) errors. Retries respect the Retry-After header when present, otherwise use exponential backoff (1s → 2s → 4s, capped at 20s). External abort signals are honored during retry waits.

ID Auto-Routing

Pass a DOI or arXiv ID as the query parameter to academic_search and it will automatically resolve the paper via direct lookup, prepend the result to search results, and deduplicate normally.

arXiv Category Filtering

Use the categories parameter to restrict arXiv results to specific categories (e.g., ["cs.CL", "cs.LG"]). Queries with existing arXiv field prefixes (ti:, au:, abs:, cat:, all:) or boolean operators (AND/OR/ANDNOT) are passed through verbatim.

Abstract Enrichment

By default (enrich: true), papers missing abstracts are enriched via the Semantic Scholar batch API (up to 20 papers per call, matched by DOI). Failures are silent — the original results are returned unchanged.

Source Priority

When the same paper appears from multiple sources, the first source in the priority order determines scalar fields (title, year, abstract, etc.): Semantic Scholar > OpenAlex > arXiv > Crossref > DBLP > PubMed.

Open Access Filtering

When openAccessOnly is true, OA filtering is applied uniformly at the aggregation layer after deduplication, based on the merged isOpenAccess field. DBLP results are always marked as isOpenAccess: false (the ee field indicates electronic edition, not open access).

Post-Dedupe Year Filter

The year filter is applied after deduplication on the merged results, ensuring consistent filtering regardless of which source contributed the data. Papers without a year field are preserved (not filtered out).