semantic-scholar

name semantic-scholar description Search published venue papers (IEEE, ACM, Springer, etc.) via Semantic Scholar API. Complements /arxiv (preprints) with citation counts, venue metadata, and TLDR. Use when user says "search semantic scholar", "find IEEE papers", "find journal papers", "venue papers", "citation search", or wants published literature beyond arXiv preprints. argument-hint query-or-paper-id allowed-tools Bash(*), Read, Write Semantic Scholar Paper Search Search topic or paper ID: $ARGUMENTS Role & Positioning This skill is the published venue counterpart to /arxiv : Skill Source Best for /arxiv arXiv API Latest preprints, cutting-edge unrefereed work /semantic-scholar Semantic Scholar API Published journal/conference papers (IEEE, ACM, Springer, etc.) with citation counts, venue info, TLDR Do NOT duplicate arXiv's job. If results contain an externalIds.ArXiv field, the paper is also on arXiv — note this but do not re-fetch from arXiv. Constants MAX_RESULTS = 10 — Default number of search results. S2_FETCHER — canonical name semantic_scholar_fetch.py , resolved per shared-references/integration-contract.md §2 (Policy D1 — primary + fallback cascade). If unresolved (canonical chain exhausted), fall back to the inline Python alternative documented in Step 2. DEFAULT_FILTERS — For general research queries, apply these by default to reduce noise: --fields-of-study "Computer Science,Engineering" --publication-types JournalArticle,Conference Overrides (append to arguments): /semantic-scholar "topic" - max: 20 — return up to 20 results /semantic-scholar "topic" - type: journal — only journal articles /semantic-scholar "topic" - type: conference — only conference papers /semantic-scholar "topic" - min-citations: 50 — only highly-cited papers /semantic-scholar "topic" - year: 2022- — papers from 2022 onward /semantic-scholar "topic" - fields: all — remove default field-of-study filter /semantic-scholar "topic" - sort: citations — bulk search sorted by citation count /semantic-scholar "DOI:10.1109/..." — fetch a single paper by DOI Workflow Step 1: Parse Arguments Parse $ARGUMENTS for directives: Query or ID : main search term, or a paper identifier: DOI: 10.1109/TWC.2024.1234567 Semantic Scholar ID: f9314fd99be5f2b1b3efcfab87197d578160d553 ArXiv: ARXIV:2006.10685 Corpus: CorpusId:219792180 - max: N : override MAX_RESULTS - type: journal|conference|review|all : map to --publication-types - min-citations: N : map to --min-citations - year: RANGE : map to --year (e.g. 2022- , 2020-2024 ) - fields: FIELDS : override --fields-of-study (use all to remove filter) - sort: citations|date : use search-bulk with --sort citationCount:desc or publicationDate:desc If the argument matches a DOI pattern ( 10.XXXX/... ), a Semantic Scholar ID (40-char hex), or a prefixed ID ( ARXIV:... , CorpusId:... ), skip search and go directly to Step 3. Step 2: Search Papers Resolve $S2_FETCHER via the canonical strict-safe chain (see shared-references/integration-contract.md §2): cd " $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd) " || exit 1 if [ -z " ${ARIS_REPO:-} " ] && [ -f .aris/installed-skills.txt ]; then ARIS_REPO=$(awk -F '\t' '$1=="repo_root"{print $2; exit}' .aris/installed-skills.txt 2>/dev/null) || true fi if [ -z " ${ARIS_REPO:-} " ] && [ -f " $HOME /.aris/repo" ]; then ARIS_REPO=$( cat " $HOME /.aris/repo" 2>/dev/null) || true fi S2_FETCHER= ".aris/tools/semantic_scholar_fetch.py" [ -f " $S2_FETCHER " ] || S2_FETCHER= "tools/semantic_scholar_fetch.py" [ -f " $S2_FETCHER " ] || { [ -n " ${ARIS_REPO:-} " ] && S2_FETCHER= " $ARIS_REPO /tools/semantic_scholar_fetch.py" ; } [ -f " $S2_FETCHER " ] || S2_FETCHER= "" Standard search (default — relevance-ranked): python3 " $S2_FETCHER " search "QUERY" --max MAX_RESULTS \ --fields-of-study "Computer Science,Engineering" \ --publication-types JournalArticle,Conference Bulk search (when - sort: is specified, or MAX_RESULTS > 100): python3 " $S2_FETCHER " search-bulk "QUERY" --max MAX_RESULTS \ -- sort citationCount:desc \ --fields-of-study "Computer Science" \ --year "2020-" If $S2_FETCHER is empty (Policy D1 cascade), fall back to inline Python using urllib against https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search . Recommended filter combos (from testing): Goal Flags High-quality journal papers --publication-types JournalArticle --min-citations 10 CS/EE papers, recent --fields-of-study "Computer Science,Engineering" --year "2022-" Foundational / high-impact search-bulk --sort citationCount:desc --fields-of-study "Computer Science" Conference papers only --publication-types Conference Note : --venue requires exact venue names (e.g. "IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing"), not partial matches like "IEEE". Avoid using --venue in automated flows — prefer --publication-types + --fields-of-study . Step 3: Fetch Details for a Specific Paper When a single paper ID is requested: python3 " $S2_FETCHER " paper "PAPER_ID" Where PAPER_ID can be: DOI: 10.1109/TSP.2021.3071210 ArXiv: ARXIV:2006.10685 CorpusId: CorpusId:219792180 S2 ID: f9314fd99be5f2b1b3efcfab87197d578160d553 Step 4: De-duplicate Against arXiv For each result, check externalIds.ArXiv : If present → paper is also on arXiv. Note this in output but do NOT re-fetch via /arxiv . If absent → paper is venue-only (e.g. IEEE without preprint). This is the unique value of this skill. Step 5: Present Results Present results as a table: | # | Title | Venue | Year | Citations | Authors | Type | |---|-------|-------|------|-----------|---------|------| | 1 | Deep Learning Enabled... | IEEE Trans. Signal Process. | 2021 | 1364 | Xie et al. | Journal | For each paper, also show: DOI link : https://doi.org/DOI (for IEEE/ACM papers, this is the canonical link) Open Access PDF : if openAccessPdf.url is non-empty, show it TLDR : if available, show the one-line summary Also on arXiv : if externalIds.ArXiv exists, note the arXiv ID Step 6: Detailed Summary For each paper (or top 5 if many results): ## [Title] - **Venue** : [venue name] ([publicationVenue.type]: journal/conference) - **Year** : [year] | **Citations** : [citationCount] - **Authors** : [full author list] - **DOI** : [doi link] - **Fields** : [fieldsOfStudy] - **TLDR** : [tldr.text if available] - **Abstract** : [abstract] - **Open Access** : [openAccessPdf.url or "Not available"] - **Also on arXiv** : [ArXiv ID if exists, else "No"] Step 7: Update Research Wiki (if active) Required when research-wiki/ exists in the project ; skip silently otherwise. When the wiki dir exists, resolve $WIKI_SCRIPT per the canonical chain at shared-references/wiki-helper-resolution.md (Variant B — warn-and-skip). For results with an externalIds.ArXiv field, use --arxiv-id ; for venue-only papers (no arXiv mirror — common for IEEE/ACM), fall back to manual metadata: if [ -d research-wiki/ ]; then cd " $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd) " || exit 1 ARIS_REPO= " ${ARIS_REPO:-$(awk -F'\t' '$1=="repo_root"{print $2; exit} ' .aris/installed-skills.txt 2>/dev/null)}" if [ -z " ${ARIS_REPO:-} " ] && [ -f " $HOME /.aris/repo" ]; then ARIS_REPO=$( cat " $HOME /.aris/repo" 2>/dev/null) || true fi WIKI_SCRIPT= ".aris/tools/research_wiki.py" [ -f " $WIKI_SCRIPT " ] || WIKI_SCRIPT= "tools/research_wiki.py" [ -f " $WIKI_SCRIPT " ] || { [ -n " ${ARIS_REPO:-} " ] && WIKI_SCRIPT= " $ARIS_REPO /tools/research_wiki.py" ; } [ -f " $WIKI_SCRIPT " ] || { echo "WARN: research_wiki.py not found; semantic-scholar results delivered, wiki ingest skipped. Fix: bash tools/install_aris.sh or smart_update.sh (refreshes ~/.aris/repo), export ARIS_REPO, or cp <ARIS-repo>/tools/research_wiki.py tools/." >&2 WIKI_SCRIPT= "" } [ -n " $WIKI_SCRIPT " ] && for each paper in results: if paper.externalIds.ArXiv: python3 " $WIKI_SCRIPT " ingest_paper research-wiki/ \ --arxiv-id "<ArXiv>" else : python3 " $WIKI_SCRIPT " ingest_paper research-wiki/ \ --title "<title>" --authors "<authors joined by , >" \ --year <year> --venue "<venue>" \ [--external-id-doi "<externalIds.DOI>" ] fi The helper handles slug / dedup / page / index / log — do not handwrite papers/<slug>.md . See shared-references/integration-contract.md . Backfill with /research-wiki sync --arxiv-ids <id1>,<id2>,... for arXiv-available papers. Step 8: Final Output Summarize what was done: Found N published papers for "query" Filters applied: [publication types, fields, year range, etc.] N papers are venue-only (not on arXiv) Wiki-ingested N papers (if research-wiki/ was present) Suggest follow-up skills: /arxiv "topic" - search arXiv preprints (complements this search) /research-lit "topic" - multi-source review: Zotero + local PDFs + arXiv + S2 /novelty-check "idea" - verify novelty against literature Key Rules Default to filtered search : Always apply --fields-of-study and --publication-types unless user says - fields: all . Without filters, S2 returns cross-discipline noise (linguistics, psychology, etc.). Citation count is gold : S2's citation data is its main advantage over arXiv. Always show citationCount prominently and use it to rank/prioritize results. Venue metadata matters : Show venue and publicationVenue.type (journal vs conference) — this helps users assess paper quality. DOI is the canonical ID for published papers : Always show DOI links for IEEE/ACM/Springer papers. Rate limiting : S2 API without key is heavily rate-limited (~1 req/s, strict cooldown). If HTTP 429 occurs, wait and retry. Recommend users set SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY env var for higher limits (free at https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/api#api-key-form ). TLDR may be null : Some publishers (notably IEEE) elide the TLDR field. Fall back to showing the first sentence of the abstract.