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alphaxiv

Quick single-paper lookup via AlphaXiv LLM-optimized summaries with tiered source fallback.

Skill by wanshuiyin

IndexedMIT★ 18,007
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Works with Claude Code, Claude apps, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, VS Code, OpenCode, Goose, Windsurf. Read the repository before you give any tool access to your data.

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About

Quick single-paper lookup via AlphaXiv LLM-optimized summaries with tiered source fallback. Use when user says "explain this paper", "summarize paper", pastes an arXiv/AlphaXiv URL, or provides a bare arXiv ID for quick understanding - not for broad literature search.

Use cases: ml, research

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Permissions

What this skill can do and what it asks for, from its SKILL.md. Checked Oct 25, 2026.

Tools
No tools found
Secrets
None asked for
Install scripts
None found

Network hosts it talks to 1

  • codeload.github.com · found in install command

Files it touches

  • ~/.claude/skills/alphaxiv

Tools it pre-approves 4

From allowed-tools in SKILL.md: the agent may use these without asking you each time.

  • Bash(*),
  • Read,
  • Write,
  • Glob

What's inside

Skill name
alphaxiv
Description
Quick single-paper lookup via AlphaXiv LLM-optimized summaries with tiered source fallback. Use when user says "explain this paper", "summarize paper", pastes an arXiv/AlphaXiv URL, or provides a bare arXiv ID for quick understanding - not for broad literature search.
License
MIT
Allowed tools
Bash(*),, Read,, Write,, Glob
Instructions
191 lines in SKILL.md · view on GitHub

Before installing

  • Pre-approves some shell commands
  • Instructions call the network

Files (1)

  • SKILL.md

SKILL.md (first lines)

# AlphaXiv Paper Lookup

Lookup paper: $ARGUMENTS

> Quick single-paper reader with tiered source fallback (overview → full markdown → LaTeX source). Powered by [AlphaXiv](https://www.alphaxiv.org).

## Role & Positioning

This skill is the **quick single-paper reader** that returns LLM-optimized summaries:

| Skill | Source | Best for |
|-------|--------|----------|
| `/arxiv` | arXiv API | Batch search, PDF download, metadata |
| `/deepxiv` | DeepXiv SDK | Progressive section-level reading |
| `/semantic-scholar` | S2 API | Published venue metadata, citation counts |
| **`/alphaxiv`** | **www.alphaxiv.org** | **Instant LLM-optimized summary of one paper, with LaTeX source fallback** |

**Do NOT use this skill for** topic discovery, broad literature search, or multi-paper surveys — use `/research-lit` or `/arxiv` instead.

## Constants

- **OVERVIEW_URL** = `https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/{PAPER_ID}.md`
- **ABS_URL** = `https://www.alphaxiv.org/abs/{PAPER_ID}.md`
- **ARXIV_SRC_URL** = `https://arxiv.org/src/{PAPER_ID}`
- **ALPHAXIV_UA** = `Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/124.0.0.0 Safari/537.36` — any modern browser UA works; update the version numbers if AlphaXiv starts blocking this value again

> Overrides (append to arguments):
> - `/alphaxiv 2401.12345` — quick overview
> - `/alphaxiv "https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12345"` — auto-extract ID
> - `/alphaxiv 2401.12345 - depth: src` — force LaTeX source inspection
> - `/alphaxiv 2401.12345 - depth: abs` — force full markdown

## Workflow

### Step 1: Parse Arguments & Extract Paper ID

Parse `$ARGUMENTS` to extract a bare arXiv paper ID. Accept these input formats:

- `https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12345` or `https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12345v2`
- `https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.12345`
- `https://alphaxiv.org/overview/2401.12345` or `https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/2401.12345`
- `https://alphaxiv.org/abs/2401.12345` or `https://www.alphaxiv.org/abs/2401.12345`
- `2401.12345` or `2401.12345v2`

Strip version suffixes (`v1`, `v2`, ...) for API calls. Store as `PAPER_ID`.

Parse optional directives:
- **`- depth: overview|abs|src`**: force a specific tier instead of cascading

### Step 2: Fetch AlphaXiv Overview (Tier 1 — Fastest)

Use `curl` with `{ALPHAXIV_UA}` to fetch the AlphaXiv overview. AlphaXiv may return 403 for non-browser User-Agents; setting a standard browser UA reduces false positives from bot-detection:

```bash
curl -sL --max-time 15 -A "{ALPHAXIV_UA}" "https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/{PAPER_ID}.md"
```

This returns a **structured, LLM-optimized report** designed for machine consumption. Use this as the default and preferred source.

If the overview answers the user's question, **stop here**. Do not fetch deeper tiers unnecessarily.

If the request fails (HTTP 4xx — 403 bot-block or 404 not-yet-processed) or returns empty content, proceed to Step 3.

### Step 3: Fetch Full AlphaXiv Markdown (Tier 2 — More Detail)

Use `curl` with `{ALPHAXIV_UA}` to fetch the full paper markdown:

```bash
curl -sL --max-time 15 -A "{ALPHAXIV_UA}" "https://www.alphaxiv.org/abs/{PAPER_ID}.md"
```

This provides the full paper body as markdown. Use when the user needs:
- Specific methodology details
- Detailed experimental results
- Particular sections not covered in the overview

If this still does not answer the question, proceed to Step 4.

### Step 4: Fetch arXiv LaTeX Source (Tier 3 — Deepest)

When the overview and full markdown are both insufficient (e.g., the user asks about equations, proofs, appendix details, or implementation specifics), download the paper's LaTeX source from `https://arxiv.org/src/{PAPER_ID}`.

The source is a `.tar.gz` archive. Download it to a temporary directory, extract it, and list the `.tex` files inside.

Then inspect **only** the files needed to answer the question. Prioritize:

1. Top-level `*.tex` files (usually the main document)
2. Files referenced by `\input{}` or `\include{}`
3. Appendices, tables, or sections directly related to the user's question

**Do NOT read the entire source tree by default.** Read selectively.

Temporary source artifacts live under `/tmp`. Do not rely on persistence.

### Step 5: Present Results

#### Default Answer Shape

```markdown
## [Paper Title]

- **arXiv**: [PAPER_ID] — https://arxiv.org/abs/[PAPER_ID]
- **Source depth**: overview | abs | src

### Summary
[2-3 sentence summary]

### Key Points
- [point 1]
- [point 2]
- [point 3]

### Answer to Your Question
[Direct answer if the user asked a specific question]
```

If the user only asks for one specific detail, answer it directly — skip the full template.

**After presenting the summary, you MUST proceed to Step 6 before ending the turn.**

From wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep, MIT.

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Open issues
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Last commit (this folder)
Sep 29, 2026 (29 days ago)
Last release
Sep 28, 2026 (1 month ago)

From GitHub (fetched Oct 24, 2026).

Details

License
MIT
First seen
Oct 24, 2026
Last checked
Oct 24, 2026

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Cite this page

alphaxiv skill. Agent Mart. https://agentmart.dev/skills/wanshuiyin-alphaxiv (last updated 2026-10-24)