62-phy041-claude-skill-citation-checker

brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-SkillsResearchAudit pendingSnapshot 9165b7e69502

Summary

This source did not publish a separate summary. Review SKILL.md before using the skill.

SKILL.md

check-citations

Verify academic citations against CrossRef, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex. Detects AI-hallucinated references, chimeric citations (real title + wrong authors), and suspicious patterns before submission.

When to Use

After writing or editing a .bib file with AI assistance
Before submitting a paper, thesis, or report
When reviewing AI-generated literature sections
As a CI/CD check in LaTeX manuscript pipelines
When auditing existing bibliographies for dead or fabricated references

Background

6-55% of AI-generated citations are fabricated (varies by model/domain)
100+ hallucinated references found in NeurIPS 2025 accepted papers
Universities increasingly treat fake citations as academic misconduct
Three hallucination types: fully fabricated, chimeric (real title + wrong authors), modified real (slightly altered metadata)

Usage

Quick Check (Single File)

python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib

Check All `.bib` Files in a Directory

python scripts/citation_checker.py path/to/report/

JSON Output (CI/CD Pipelines)

python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib --json

Verbose Mode (Debug API Responses)

python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib --verbose

How It Works

Cascading Multi-Source Verification

Each citation is checked against three independent databases:

Source	Coverage	Strength

Code	Meaning
0	All citations verified
1	One or more citations not found
2	Suspicious citations only (no hard failures)

pip install requests

Category	Result	Description
Known-good	9/10 (90%)	Famous ML papers (Vaswani, Devlin, Brown, He, etc.)
Known-bad	10/10 (100%)	Fabricated papers with plausible titles
Chimeric	5/5 (100%)	Real titles with wrong authors
False positive rate	10%	1 miss: unpublished tech report without DOI
False negative rate	0%	No fake paper was ever verified

#!/bin/bash
# .git/hooks/pre-commit
python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib --json > /tmp/cite_check.json
NOT_FOUND=$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('/tmp/cite_check.json')); print(d['summary']['not_found'])")
if [ "$NOT_FOUND" -gt "0" ]; then
    echo "BLOCKED: $NOT_FOUND unfound citations. Run 'python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib --verbose' to investigate."
    exit 1
fi

- name: Check citations
  run: |
    pip install requests
    python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib --json > citation_report.json
    python -c "
    import json, sys
    r = json.load(open('citation_report.json'))
    if r['summary']['not_found'] > 0:
        print(f'FAIL: {r[\"summary\"][\"not_found\"]} citations not found')
        sys.exit(1)
    print(f'PASS: {r[\"summary\"][\"verified\"]} verified, {r[\"summary\"][\"suspicious\"]} suspicious')
    "

62-phy041-claude-skill-citation-checker

Summary

SKILL.md

check-citations

When to Use

Background

Usage

Quick Check (Single File)

Check All `.bib` Files in a Directory

JSON Output (CI/CD Pipelines)

Verbose Mode (Debug API Responses)

How It Works

Cascading Multi-Source Verification

Chimeric Detection

Red Flag Heuristics

Exit Codes

Dependencies

Accuracy (Tested)

Limitations

Integration with LaTeX Workflows

Pre-commit Hook

GitHub Actions

Related skills

62-phy041-claude-skill-citation-checker

Summary

check-citations

When to Use

Background

Usage

Quick Check (Single File)

Check All .bib Files in a Directory

JSON Output (CI/CD Pipelines)

Verbose Mode (Debug API Responses)

How It Works

Cascading Multi-Source Verification

Chimeric Detection

Red Flag Heuristics

Exit Codes

Dependencies

Accuracy (Tested)

Limitations

Integration with LaTeX Workflows

Pre-commit Hook

GitHub Actions

Related skills

Check All `.bib` Files in a Directory