AI4Scholar

Multi-source academic literature search, management, and analysis plugin for OpenClaw.

Powered by ai4scholar.net.

What It Does

AI4Scholar gives OpenClaw direct access to 6 academic platforms through 17 built-in tools, plus a literature survey skill that generates rich HTML reports.

Platforms & Tools

| Platform | Tools | Via | |----------|-------|-----| | Semantic Scholar | search_semantic, get_semantic_paper_detail, get_semantic_citations, get_semantic_references, search_semantic_authors, get_semantic_author_papers, get_semantic_recommendations, get_semantic_recommendations_for_paper, search_semantic_snippets | ai4scholar.net | | PubMed | search_pubmed, get_pubmed_paper_detail, get_pubmed_citations, get_pubmed_related | ai4scholar.net | | Google Scholar | search_google_scholar | ai4scholar.net | | arXiv | search_arxiv | Direct API | | bioRxiv | search_biorxiv | Direct API | | medRxiv | search_medrxiv | Direct API |

Skills

| Skill | Description | |-------|-------------| | literature-survey | Structured literature survey with fulltext search, HTML report + CSV generation, or multi-source review |

Slash Commands

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | /library | List downloaded papers in the active project | | /projects | List all literature projects | | /reading-list | Show the reading list |

Report Generation

The plugin includes Python scripts for generating rich HTML reports from fulltext search results:

• 6 color themes (Light, Sepia, Dark, Green, Pink, Perplexity)
• Interactive snippet cards with modal detail views
• Filtering by source type, year, venue, and keyword
• Automatic title translation (Chinese ↔ English)
• CSV data export

Prerequisites

• OpenClaw installed and running
• An ai4scholar.net API key (for Semantic Scholar, PubMed, and Google Scholar tools)
• Python 3.8+ with requests (for HTML report generation)

Install

From npm (recommended)

openclaw plugins install ai4scholar

The plugin installs to ~/.openclaw/extensions/ai4scholar/ and is automatically enabled.

From source (development)

git clone https://github.com/literaf/ai4scholar.git
cd ai4scholar && pnpm install && pnpm build

# Link as dev plugin
pnpm dev:link
# or equivalently:
openclaw plugins install -l .

Verify installation

openclaw plugins list
# Should show: ai4scholar (enabled)

After installation, restart the gateway to load the plugin:

# Stop the running gateway (Ctrl+C), then:
openclaw gateway

Configuration

After installation, set your API key in OpenClaw's plugin settings (WebUI):

• AI4Scholar API Key — get one at ai4scholar.net/dashboard

Optional: External MCP Server

For additional capabilities, you can also configure the ai4scholar-mcp server in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ai4scholar": {
      "url": "https://mcp.ai4scholar.net/sse",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <your-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage

Just talk to your OpenClaw assistant:

Search for recent papers on transformer-based time series forecasting

Give me a literature survey on protein folding prediction methods since 2020

Search the full text of papers for "dropout rate 0.1 Transformer implementation"

Project Structure

ai4scholar/
├── src/                    # TypeScript source
│   ├── tools/              # 17 tool implementations
│   │   ├── api-client.ts   # HTTP client for ai4scholar.net
│   │   ├── semantic-scholar.ts  # 9 Semantic Scholar tools
│   │   ├── pubmed.ts       # 4 PubMed tools
│   │   ├── google-scholar.ts    # Google Scholar search
│   │   ├── arxiv.ts        # arXiv search
│   │   ├── biorxiv.ts      # bioRxiv + medRxiv search
│   │   ├── result.ts       # Tool result helpers
│   │   └── params.ts       # Parameter parsing
│   ├── hooks/              # Agent hooks
│   └── commands.ts         # Slash commands
├── scripts/                # Python helper scripts
│   ├── fulltext_search.py  # Fulltext search + data processing
│   ├── generate_html.py    # HTML report generator
│   └── translate_titles.py # Title translation helper
├── assets/                 # Report templates
│   ├── template_fulltext.html
│   └── styles.css
├── skills/                 # Agent skills
│   └── literature-survey/
│       └── SKILL.md
├── openclaw.plugin.json    # Plugin manifest
└── index.ts                # Plugin entry point

License

MIT