A professional academic research skill that enables AI agents to find, filter, and analyze peer-reviewed literature and citations.
Install & Download
1. ClawHub CLI
The fastest way to install a skill directly from the registry.
npx clawhub@latest install scholar
2. Manual Installation
Copy the skill folder to one of these locations
~/.openclaw/skills/ <project>/skills/ Priority: Workspace > Local > Bundled
3. Prompt Installation
Copy this prompt to OpenClaw to install it automatically.
Help me install scholar using Clawhub. If Clawhub is not installed, install it first (npm i -g clawhub).
Prefer to download?
Get the raw skill files in a ZIP archive.
What is Scholar?
The Scholar skill is a specialized toolset designed for deep academic exploration. It allows an AI agent to navigate the complexities of Google Scholar, using advanced query logic such as author filters, source-specific searches, and phrase matching. This skill is essential for users of Openclaw Skills who need to synthesize high-quality information from journals, conferences, and preprints while avoiding the pitfalls of predatory publishing.
Beyond simple searching, the skill provides a framework for citation analysis, helping agents understand the impact of specific papers via metrics like the h-index and citation counts. It focuses on finding the technical truth by teaching agents to look past citation habit and prioritize recent, high-impact research while identifying free, legal versions of paywalled documents.
Scholar Use Cases
- Automating literature reviews by finding the most cited papers in a specific domain.
- Identifying cutting-edge research published within the last 12 months using custom time filters.
- Performing citation snowballing to track how a specific theory or technology has evolved.
- Locating open-access PDF versions of papers through institutional repositories and preprints.
- Tracking specific researchers' output to stay updated on their latest contributions to a field.
How Scholar Works
- Formulate a search query using Boolean operators like OR and exclusion terms to narrow the field of results.
- Apply time-based constraints to prioritize either historical influence or modern recency depending on the research goal.
- Extract metadata from search snippets, including citation counts and publication sources, to evaluate paper quality.
- Navigate the network of citations by exploring papers that have cited the target work to follow research forward.
- Execute filetype-specific searches to locate direct download links for full-text academic PDFs.
Scholar Setup
To integrate this research capability into your workflow, ensure you are using a compatible agent environment for Openclaw Skills. Install the skill using the following command:
clawdbot install scholar
No additional API keys are required for basic searching, though institutional VPNs or library proxies may be configured to access restricted journal content.
Scholar Data Schema & Taxonomy
The Scholar skill organizes academic data into structured metadata fields for clear analysis and export. Openclaw Skills users can expect data organized as follows:
| Metadata Key | Description |
|---|---|
| title | The full title of the paper or article. |
| authors | A list of contributing researchers, often linked to profiles. |
| citation_count | The total number of times the work has been cited. |
| source | The journal, conference, or repository of origin. |
| version_links | Links to alternative copies, including preprints and PDFs. |
| snippet | A brief excerpt showing the query terms in context. |
Scholar Advanced Features
- Support for author: and source: operators for highly targeted academic scouting.
- Intelligent detection of free-to-read versions using Unpaywall and repository indexing.
- Citation export compatibility for BibTeX, EndNote, and RefMan reference managers.
- Automated tracking of author h-index and publication impact metrics.
- Multi-query synthesis to compare terminology across different academic disciplines.
SKILL.md
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