Scholar Sidekick CLI

Command-line client for Scholar Sidekick — resolve any scholarly identifier (DOI, PMID, PMCID, ISBN, arXiv, ISSN, NASA ADS bibcode, WHO IRIS URL) into 10,000+ citation styles or nine export formats, and run retraction, open-access, and citation-fabrication checks, straight from your terminal.

It is a thin wrapper over the public Scholar Sidekick REST API. No API key is required for the free, rate-limited tier — install and go. Add a key to raise limits and unlock paid features.

Install

npm install -g scholar-sidekick-cli

Or run without installing:

npx scholar-sidekick-cli format 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3 --style apa

Requires Node.js >= 20.

Quick start

# Format a citation (default style: Vancouver)
scholar format 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3 --style apa

# Resolve structured metadata
scholar resolve PMC7793608

# Export to a reference manager format (raw file content on stdout)
scholar export 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3 --format ris > refs.ris

# Verify a citation is real (catches the "real DOI + invented title" pattern)
scholar verify --title "Some cited title" --doi 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3

# Check retraction / open-access status
scholar retraction 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3
scholar oa 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3

# Browse citation styles
scholar styles harvard

# Service health
scholar health

Every command accepts multiple identifiers (space-, comma-, or newline-separated) for batch processing, except verify, retraction, and oa, which take a single identifier.

Commands

Command	What it does
format <ids...>	Format identifiers into a citation style. --style, --lang, --footnote, --output text|html|json.
resolve <ids...>	Resolve identifiers to bibliographic metadata (CSL/Biblio JSON).
export <ids...>	Export to a file format: --format bib|ris|csv|csl|endnote-xml|endnote-refer|refworks|medline|zotero-rdf|txt.
format-items	Format pre-resolved items from --file <json> or stdin (a JSON array).
stream <ids...>	Format a batch, streaming each result as it resolves (NDJSON).
verify	Verify a claimed citation against the record at its identifier. --title (required) + an identifier flag.
retraction <id>	Check retraction / correction / expression-of-concern status (Crossref / Retraction Watch).
oa <id>	Check open-access status and best legal copy (Unpaywall). Alias: open-access.
styles [query]	List available CSL citation styles (searchable, paginated).
health	Service liveness and diagnostics.

Run scholar <command> --help for the full option list.

Output

Human-readable text by default. Pass --json to any command to get the raw API JSON instead (ideal for scripting and jq):

scholar resolve 10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3 --json | jq '.[0].title'

export writes the raw file content to stdout, so you can redirect it straight to a file. A dim provenance footer (request id, cache status, style, version) is printed to stderr so it never pollutes piped output; suppress it with --quiet. Colour is auto-disabled when output is not a TTY, when NO_COLOR is set, or with --no-color.

Authentication

The CLI works anonymously against the canonical API. To raise rate limits or use paid features, supply a key:

# RapidAPI key (also switches the base URL to the RapidAPI gateway)
scholar format 10.1016/... --rapidapi-key "$RAPIDAPI_KEY"
export RAPIDAPI_KEY=...        # or via environment

# First-party Scholar Sidekick API key
scholar format 10.1016/... --api-key "$SCHOLAR_API_KEY"
export SCHOLAR_API_KEY=...

A RapidAPI key (free tier available) is the supported way to authenticate today. The RapidAPI gateway exposes format, export, verify, retraction, oa, and health; the canonical-only commands (format-items, stream, styles) print a warning and should be used anonymously or with a first-party key.

Global options

Flag	Env var	Default
--rapidapi-key <key>	RAPIDAPI_KEY	—
--api-key <key>	SCHOLAR_API_KEY	—
--base-url <url>	SCHOLAR_SIDEKICK_URL	https://scholar-sidekick.com
--timeout <ms>	SCHOLAR_SIDEKICK_TIMEOUT_MS	30000
--json	—	off (human-readable)
--quiet	—	off
--no-color	NO_COLOR	colour on (TTY only)

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
1	API returned an error (4xx/5xx), or verify --fail-on-mismatch and the verdict was mismatch/not_found
2	Network failure or timeout
3	Usage error (bad flags or invalid input)

Related

• REST API — scholar-sidekick.com/docs
• MCP server — scholar-sidekick-mcp for AI assistants
• Website — scholar-sidekick.com

Development

npm install
npm run typecheck     # tsc --noEmit
npm test              # vitest
npm run test:coverage # with coverage
npm run build         # bundle to dist/cli.mjs

License

MIT