Agent skill · research science · google-deepmind
literature-search-openalex
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.
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific commands and usage patterns for querying the OpenAlex API that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires uv installed locally. Requires openalex account access. About 4k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-07-07. 2,648 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
OpenAlex Skill Prerequisites 1. uv: Read the uv skill and follow its Setup instructions to ensure uv is installed and on PATH. 2. User Notification: If .licenses/literaturesearchopenalexLICENSE.txt does not already exist in the workspace root directory then (1) prominently notify the user to check the terms at https://developers.openalex.org/ and to always check the license of the papers retrieved by the skill for any restrictions, then (2) create the file recording the notification text and timestamp. 3. .env file: Make sure the .env file exists in your home directory. Create one if it does not exist. 4. OPENALEXAPIKEY (optional but recommended): Enables the OpenAlex Premium API with higher rate limits. The skill works without it (using the free "polite pool"). You can obtain a key at OpenAlex.org → account settings. You MUST use the safe credentials protocol in the credentials skill to check for and request this key if this skill looks relevant to the user's request. Core Rules 1. List Sources. If this skill is used, ensure this is mentioned in the output AND list the URLs of all papers that were used in producing the output. 2. Resolve before filter. NEVER filter by name. Always resolve a name to an ID first, then use that ID in --filter. 3. Use the CLI only. Never call the API via curl/urllib. The CLI handles retries and rate limiting. 4. No fabrication. Never invent OpenAlex IDs or DOIs. Use resolve/get to look them up. Report empty results accurately. 5. API key. If a command returns 401/429 or you need high-volume queries, you MUST use the safe credentials protocol in the credentials skill to check for and request the OPENALEXAPIKEY to help the user add it to their .env file. 6. Keep output small. Always use --select and --per-page 5–10 for overview queries. Pipe filter output to a file (> results.json), then slim with jq before reading into context. Rate Limits With key: ~10 req/s, $1/day free budget. Without key: Very limited, $0.01/day budget. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills google-deepmind/literature_search_openalex