| name | wenxian | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| description | Generate citations from academic paper identifiers (DOI, PMID, arXiv ID, or paper titles) in various formats including BibTeX, plain text, and Markdown. Use this skill when users need to create citations, bibliography entries, or convert paper identifiers to different citation formats. | ||||||
| license | LGPL-3.0 | ||||||
| compatibility | Requires Python 3.10+, uv package manager recommended | ||||||
| metadata |
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Use this skill when:
- Users need to generate citations or bibliography entries for academic papers
- Users have DOI, PMID, arXiv ID, or paper titles and need citations
- Users are working on LaTeX documents and need BibTeX entries
- Users need plain text or Markdown formatted citations
- Users mention citations, references, BibTeX, or academic papers
Wenxian is a tool that generates citations from various academic paper identifiers in multiple formats (BibTeX, plain text, Markdown). The name "wenxian" (文献) means "literature" or "references" in Chinese.
Wenxian requires Python 3.10+. It's recommended to use uv package manager.
If uv is not already installed, install it with:
pip install uvOr, if pip is not available:
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | shuvx wenxian from 10.1063/5.0155600uvx wenxian from 1512.03385uvx wenxian from 12345678When the identifier is a text string, wenxian searches by paper title:
uvx wenxian from "Attention is all you need"Note: Enclose paper titles in quotes if they contain spaces.
By default, wenxian generates BibTeX format. You can specify different output formats using the -t or --type option:
uvx wenxian from 1512.03385Generate a plain text citation instead of BibTeX:
uvx wenxian from 1512.03385 -t textExample output: Kaiming He, Xiangyu Zhang, Shaoqing Ren, Jian Sun, Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition, arXiv, 2015, 1512.03385.
uvx wenxian from 1512.03385 -t markdownBy default, the command will print a BibTeX entry to standard output. For example:
@article{vaswani2017attention,
title={Attention is all you need},
author={Vaswani, Ashish and Shazeer, Noam and ...},
journal={Advances in neural information processing systems},
volume={30},
year={2017}
}-
Single citation: Generate a BibTeX entry for one paper
uvx wenxian from "10.1038/nature12373" -
Multiple citations: Generate entries for multiple papers by running the command multiple times
uvx wenxian from "10.1038/nature12373" uvx wenxian from "10.1126/science.1158899"
-
Save to file: Redirect output to a .bib file
uvx wenxian from "10.1038/nature12373" >> references.bib
-
Invalid identifier: If the identifier is not recognized, wenxian will return an error. Verify the identifier format.
-
Network issues: Wenxian queries external APIs. Network connectivity is required.
-
Paper title not found: If searching by title doesn't return results, try:
- Using a more complete or exact title
- Using the DOI or arXiv ID instead
- Checking for typos in the title
-
Multiple results for title search: Wenxian will return the best match. If unsure, use a specific identifier like DOI.
-
Special characters in titles: Always use quotes around paper titles, especially if they contain spaces or special characters.
- DOI: Digital Object Identifier (e.g., 10.1063/5.0155600)
- arXiv ID: arXiv preprint identifier (e.g., 1512.03385)
- PMID: PubMed identifier (e.g., 12345678)
- Paper title: Full or partial paper title as a string (e.g., "Attention is all you need")
- BibTeX (default): For LaTeX documents and reference managers
- Plain text: Human-readable citation format
- Markdown: For Markdown documents and wikis
When a user asks to "add a citation for DOI 10.1234/example", you should:
-
Run wenxian to generate the BibTeX entry:
uvx wenxian from 10.1234/example
-
Display or save the output to their bibliography file
-
Confirm the citation has been added
For multiple citations, run wenxian for each identifier and append results:
uvx wenxian from "10.1038/nature12373" >> references.bib
uvx wenxian from "1512.03385" >> references.bib
uvx wenxian from "Attention is all you need" >> references.bib- Prefer specific identifiers: DOI and arXiv IDs are more reliable than title searches
- Quote titles: Always enclose paper titles in quotes
- Choose appropriate format: Use
-t textfor plain citations,-t markdownfor Markdown documents, or default BibTeX for LaTeX - Verify output: Check the generated citation for completeness
- Use uv: The
uvxcommand ensures you're always using the latest version without manual installation - Handle errors gracefully: If wenxian fails, ask the user to verify the identifier or try an alternative identifier type