Literature Search Openalex

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Searching academic papers
• Downloading open-access PDFs
• Finding an authors publications
• Aggregating bibliometric data (citation counts

Example prompts

• “/literature-search-openalex”

Requirements

• Python 3
• A credential in OPENALEX_API_KEY

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1uv: Read the uv skill and follow its Setup instructions to ensure
2. 2User Notification: If .licenses/literature_search_openalex_LICENSE.txt
3. 3.env file: Make sure the .env file exists in your home directory.
4. 4OPENALEX_API_KEY (optional but recommended): Enables the OpenAlex

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 8ab7672. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships 1 file in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • uv
  • jq

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

  • doi.org

  Also links to:

  • developers.openalex.org

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names these keys or tokens, usually read from environment variables:

  • OPENALEX_API_KEY

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Literature Search Openalex loads about 1.8k tokens when it runs, and up to ~12k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 107 tokens; SKILL.md has 676 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~107

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.8k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~12k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:24

  3.  **`.env` file**: Make sure the `.env` file exists in your home directory.

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:47

  their `.env` file.

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:156

  :      :                     : `.env`                        :

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:164

  : user add API key to `.env`    :

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from google-deepmind/science-skills at commit 8ab7672, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© google-deepmind). 676 words, ~1,844 tokens.

name

literature-search-openalex

description

Query the OpenAlex scholarly database for research papers, authors, institutions, topics, sources, publishers, funders, geo-locations, and keywords. Use when searching academic papers, resolving DOIs, downloading open-access PDFs, finding an author's publications, aggregating bibliometric data (citation counts, h-index, impact factor), exploring the research taxonomies, or performing DOI lookups.

uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py [--api-key KEY] <command> [flags]

# Author's works (resolve → filter)
uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py resolve authors "Geoffrey Hinton"
uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py filter works \
  --filter "authorships.author.id:A5108093963" \
  --sort "cited_by_count:desc" --per-page 10 > papers.json
cat papers.json | jq '[.results[] | {id, title: .display_name, year: .publication_year, citations: .cited_by_count}]'

# DOI lookup
uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py get works "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2"

# Bulk DOI lookup (up to 100)
uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py filter works \
  --filter "doi:10.1234/a|10.1234/b|10.1234/c" --per-page 100 > results.json

# Institutional impact by year
uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py resolve institutions "MIT"
uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py filter works \
  --filter "authorships.institutions.id:I63966007" \
  --group-by "publication_year" > mit_by_year.json

# Random sample
uv run scripts/openalex_cli.py filter works \
  --filter "publication_year:2023,is_oa:true" \
  --sample 100 --seed 42 > results.json

© google-deepmind, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 11 other files (scripts, references) in skills/literature_search_openalex of google-deepmind/science-skills.

• SKILL.md
• references/authors.md
• references/citation.bib
• references/geo_and_language.md
• references/institutions.md
• references/publishers_funders.md
• references/sources.md
• references/taxonomy.md
• references/topics.md
• references/type_values.md
• references/works.md
• scripts/openalex_cli.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 8ab7672

Used in 2 other repositories

We found 2 copies of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 2 other GitHub owners. This page covers the copy in google-deepmind/science-skills, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

• NeuroAIHub/BrainPilotpackages/skills/skills/17_Literature_Databases/literature-search-openalex
• franklee16/academic-research-skillsscience-skills/literature_search_openalex