pubsum

Search and summarise academic publications from your terminal. Powered by OpenAlex and CrossRef — no API key or account required.

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║  pub  —  Academic Publication Summariser             ║
║  OpenAlex · CrossRef · No API key required           ║
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Features

• Search OpenAlex & CrossRef simultaneously
• Summarise abstracts into Summary / Key Findings / Methodology / Future Work
• Filter by year, citation count, open access status, or geographic area
• Export to terminal (colour), .docx, Markdown, or JSON
• Geographic ranking — Jaffna Peninsula → Sri Lanka → South Asia → Global (customisable)
• Zero config — works out of the box, docx installed on first use if needed

Installation

macOS — Homebrew (recommended)

brew tap s19835/pubsum
brew install pubsum

macOS / Linux / Windows — npm (Node.js ≥ 16)

npm install -g @decoding/pubsum

Linux — one-liner install script

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/s19835/pubsum/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Or manually:

# Requires Node.js ≥ 16
node --version          # check
npm install -g @decoding/pubsum
pub --help

Windows — npm (PowerShell or Command Prompt)

npm install -g @decoding/pubsum
pub --help

Node.js not installed? Download from nodejs.org (LTS) or use a version manager:

• macOS/Linux: nvm → nvm install --lts
• Windows: nvm-windows or fnm

Verify installation

pub help

Quick Start

# Search and display in the terminal
pub search "groundwater Jaffna" --count 10

# Export to Word document
pub search "citizen science water" --format docx --out review.docx

# Export to Markdown
pub search "salinity Sri Lanka" --format markdown > review.md

# Export to JSON for further processing
pub search "water quality" --format json > papers.json

# Verbose mode: include Methodology & Future Work
pub search "rainwater harvesting" --verbose

# Filter: only recent Open Access papers
pub search "arsenic groundwater" --min-year 2018 --only-oa

# Interactive mode (no arguments needed)
pub search

Commands

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | pub search <query> [options] | Search publications and summarise | | pub review --config <file.json> | Build a review from a hand-curated JSON config | | pub template | Print a JSON config template | | pub help | Show help |

Search Options

| Flag | Default | Description | |------|---------|-------------| | --count N | 12 | Number of papers to retrieve (max 50) | | --format terminal | terminal | Output format: terminal, docx, markdown, json | | --out file | — | Output file path (for docx/markdown) | | --by "Name" | — | "Prepared by" field for the document | | --scope "text" | — | Subtitle / scope label for the document | | --extra "a,b" | — | Additional search terms (comma-separated) | | --min-year N | — | Only include papers published ≥ year | | --max-year N | — | Only include papers published ≤ year | | --min-cites N | — | Only include papers with ≥ N citations | | --only-oa | — | Only include Open Access papers | | --area "region" | — | Filter by study area (e.g. jaffna, global) | | --verbose | — | Show Methodology & Future Work sections | | --no-crossref | — | Skip CrossRef fallback (faster, fewer results) |

Usage Examples

Terminal output (default)

pub search "groundwater salinity Jaffna" --count 15 --verbose

Word document

pub search "citizen science water monitoring" \
  --count 20 \
  --format docx \
  --out "Water_Monitoring_Review.docx" \
  --by "Dr. A. Researcher" \
  --scope "Focus: Jaffna Peninsula · Sri Lanka · Global"

Markdown → GitHub / Notion

pub search "rainwater harvesting Sri Lanka" --format markdown > review.md

JSON → pipe into other tools

pub search "water quality school" --format json | jq '.[].title'

Filter & combine

# Only highly-cited Open Access papers from the last 5 years
pub search "fluoride groundwater" \
  --min-year 2019 \
  --min-cites 20 \
  --only-oa \
  --count 25

Hand-curated review

# 1. Generate a template
pub template > my_papers.json

# 2. Edit my_papers.json with your publications

# 3. Build the document
pub review --config my_papers.json

JSON Config Format (for pub review)

{
  "meta": {
    "title":       "Literature Review on Citizen Science Water Monitoring",
    "subtitle":    "Focus: Jaffna Peninsula · Sri Lanka · Global",
    "preparedBy":  "Your Name / Organisation",
    "fundedBy":    "Funder Name",          // optional
    "date":        "March 2026",
    "outputFile":  "My_Review.docx",
    "searchTerms": "citizen science, groundwater, water quality"
  },
  "executiveSummary": "One paragraph summary...",
  "groups": [
    {
      "label": "A",
      "title": "Regional Studies — Jaffna Peninsula",
      "intro": "Optional introductory paragraph.",
      "publications": [
        {
          "title":     "Article Title",
          "authors":   "Smith, J. et al.",
          "journal":   "Nature Water, 1(2), pp. 3–10",
          "year":      "2024",
          "studyArea": "Jaffna Peninsula",
          "sections": {
            "summary":     "What the paper is about.",
            "keyFindings": "Results and numbers.",
            "methodology": "How it was done.",    // optional
            "futureWork":  "Next steps."          // optional
          },
          "doi":    "https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx",
          "access": "Open Access"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Run pub template to get a ready-to-edit copy.

How It Works

pub search "query"
     │
     ├─► OpenAlex API  (primary — best abstract coverage)
     │       └─ parallel: base query + "query Jaffna Sri Lanka"
     │
     ├─► CrossRef API  (fallback if < 5 OpenAlex results)
     │
     ├─► Deduplicate by DOI
     │
     ├─► Rank by: geographic priority × 1000 + log(citations) × 100 + OA bonus
     │       Jaffna Peninsula → Sri Lanka → South Asia → Global
     │
     ├─► Filter (year / citations / OA / area)
     │
     ├─► Parse abstract → Summary / Key Findings / Methodology / Future Work
     │
     └─► Render (terminal / docx / markdown / json)

Geographic Priority

Publications are automatically classified and ranked:

| Priority | Region | |----------|--------| | 1 (highest) | Jaffna Peninsula (incl. Vanni, Kilinochchi, Mannar, Mullaitivu) | | 2 | Sri Lanka / Northern Province | | 3 | South / South-East Asia | | 4 | Global |

Detection is automatic from title, abstract, and journal venue text.

Platform Notes

macOS & Linux

Works out of the box after npm install -g @decoding/pubsum. The pub command is added to your PATH automatically.

Windows

After npm install -g @decoding/pubsum, use pub in Command Prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Terminal. npm creates a .cmd wrapper automatically — no extra setup needed.

pub search "groundwater" --count 5

If pub is not found after install, ensure npm's global bin is on your PATH:

# In PowerShell:
npm config get prefix          # e.g. C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\npm
# Add that folder to your PATH in System Environment Variables

Node.js Version

Requires Node.js ≥ 16. Check with:

node --version

Development

git clone https://github.com/s19835/pubsum
cd pubsum
npm install
npm link          # makes `pub` available globally from local source

Module structure

bin/
  pub.js              CLI entry point
lib/
  fetch.js            HTTP utility (get, sleep, stripTags, reconstructAbstract)
  study-area.js       Region detection, priority ordering, ANSI/docx colours
  abstract.js         Abstract → structured sections parser
  rank.js             dedupe(), rank(), filter()
  sources/
    openalex.js       OpenAlex API client
    crossref.js       CrossRef API client
  output/
    terminal.js       Rich terminal renderer (banner, spinner, cards, table)
    markdown.js       Markdown renderer
    docx.js           Word .docx renderer (lazy-loads docx package)

Publishing to npm

npm login
npm publish

Homebrew Tap Setup

After publishing to GitHub at github.com/s19835/pubsum:

1. Create a new repo: github.com/s19835/homebrew-pubsum
2. Copy homebrew/pubsum.rb from this repo into Formula/pubsum.rb in the new repo
3. Update the sha256 checksum (run shasum -a 256 pubsum-1.0.0.tgz on the npm tarball)
4. Users can then install via:

brew tap s19835/pubsum
brew install pubsum

License

MIT © pubsum contributors