Add Citation

SkillDev tools

Finds a paper by title, author, or DOI, adds BibTeX to references.bib, and shows citation syntax. Use when adding a reference.

Instructions available. Your AI can read the instructions. Execution depends on the setup they require.

Add ahel to your AI once: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. Then ask it to use this.

Then ask your AI: use the Add Citation skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by brycewang-stanford/auto-empirical-research-skills in skills/29-quarcs-lab-project20XXy/dot-claude/skills/cite/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Find a paper, create a BibTeX entry, add it to references.bib, and provide the citation syntax.

Arguments

  • $ARGUMENTS — a paper description, title, author name, or DOI (e.g., "Acemoglu 2001 colonial origins" or "10.1257/aer.91.5.1369")

Steps

  1. Parse the argument to determine if it is a DOI or a descriptive search query.

  2. Search for the paper:

    • If a DOI is provided, fetch the metadata directly (use web search or CrossRef)
    • If a description is provided, search the web to identify the paper and its DOI/metadata
  3. Construct a valid BibTeX entry with these fields (at minimum):

    • @article{key, (or @book, @incollection, etc. as appropriate)
    • author, title, journal (or booktitle), year, volume, number, pages, doi
    • Use a citation key in the format: lastname_yearword (e.g., acemoglu2001colonial)
  4. Read references.bib and check for duplicate keys:

    • If the exact key already exists, inform the user and show the existing entry
    • If a similar key exists (same author and year), warn the user
  5. Append the new entry to references.bib (add a blank line before the new entry)

  6. Show the user the citation syntax for use in index.qmd:

    • Narrative: @key → "Author (Year)"
    • Parenthetical: [@key] → "(Author, Year)"
    • Multiple: [@key1; @key2]
  7. Ask if the user wants to create an annotation note in references/ (see /project:literature-note)

Error handling

  • If the paper cannot be found, report the search results and ask the user to provide more details or a DOI.
  • If references.bib does not exist, create it with the new entry.

Signals

GitHub stars
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Forks
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Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Item type
skill
Key
cite-brycewang-stanford
Source
github.com/brycewang-stanford/auto-empirical-research-skills