openalex-database

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SKILL.md (first lines)

# 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):

```python
from scripts.openalex_client import OpenAlexClient

client = OpenAlexClient(email="your-email@example.edu")
```

### Installation Requirements

Install required package using uv:

```bash
uv pip install requests
```

No API key required - OpenAlex is completely open.

## Core Capabilities

### 1. Search for Papers

**Use for**: Finding papers by title, abstract, or topic

```python
# Simple search
results = client.search_works(
    search="machine learning",
    per_page=100
)

# Search with filters
results = client.search_works(
    search="CRISPR gene editing",
    filter_params={
        "publication_year": ">2020",
        "is_oa": "true"
    },
    sort="cited_by_count:desc"
)
```

### 2. Find Works by Author

**Use for**: Getting all publications by a specific researcher

Use the two-step pattern (entity name → ID → works):

```python
from scripts.query_helpers import find_author_works

works = find_author_works(
    author_name="Jennifer Doudna",
    client=client,
    limit=100
)
```

**Manual two-step approach**:
```python
# Step 1: Get author ID
author_response = client._make_request(
    '/authors',
    params={'search': 'Jennifer Doudna', 'per-page': 1}
)
author_id = author_response['results'][0]['id'].split('/')[-1]

# Step 2: Get works
works = client.search_works(
    filter_params={"authorships.author.id": author_id}
)
```

### 3. Find Works from Institution

**Use for**: Analyzing research output from universities or organizations

```python
from scripts.query_helpers import find_institution_works

works = find_institution_works(
    institution_name="Stanford University",
    client=client,
    limit=200
)
```

### 4. Highly Cited Papers

**Use for**: Finding influential papers in a field

```python
from scripts.query_helpers import find_highly_cited_recent_papers

papers = find_highly_cited_recent_papers(
    topic="quantum computing",
    years=">2020",
    client=client,
    limit=100
)
```

### 5. Open Access Papers

**Use for**: Finding freely available research

```python
from scripts.query_helpers import get_open_access_papers

From beita6969/ScienceClaw, MIT.

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