Agent skill · research science · aiskillstore
openalex-database
Query and analyze scholarly literature using the OpenAlex database. This skill should be used when searching for academic papers, analyzing research trends, finding works by authors or institutions, tracking citations, discovering open access publications, or conducting bibliometric analysis across 240M+ scholarly works. Use for literature searches, research output analysis, citation analysis, and academic database queries.
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific API commands and workflows for querying and analyzing scholarly literature that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires uv installed locally. About 6k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 405 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
OpenAlex Database Overview OpenAlex is a comprehensive open catalog of 240M+ scholarly works, authors, institutions, topics, sources, publishers, and funders. This skill provides tools and workflows for querying the OpenAlex API to search literature, analyze research output, track citations, and conduct bibliometric studies. Quick Start Basic Setup Always initialize the client with an email address to access the polite pool (10x rate limit boost): Installation Requirements Install required package using uv: No API key required - OpenAlex is completely open. Core Capabilities 1. Search for Papers Use for: Finding papers by title, abstract, or topic 2. Find Works by Author Use for: Getting all publications by a specific researcher Use the two-step pattern (entity name → ID → works): Manual two-step approach: 3. Find Works from Institution Use for: Analyzing research output from universities or organizations 4. Highly Cited Papers Use for: Finding influential papers in a field 5. Open Access Papers Use for: Finding freely available research 6. Publication Trends Analysis Use for: Tracking research output over time 7. Research Output Analysis Use for: Comprehensive analysis of author or institution research 8. Batch Lookups Use for: Getting information for multiple DOIs, ORCIDs, or IDs efficiently 9. Random Sampling Use for: Getting representative samples for analysis 10. Citation Analysis Use for: Finding papers that cite a specific work 11. Topic and Subject Analysis Use for: Understanding research focus areas 12. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills aiskillstore/openalex-database--cfceaa