alphaxiv

AlphaXiv Paper Research Skill

Purpose: Retrieve structured paper overviews from AlphaXiv's API and optionally save annotated research notes.

Input

$ARGUMENTS

If empty, ask via AskUserQuestion: "Please provide an arXiv paper ID or URL (e.g., 2301.07041 or https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07041)."

Step 1: Extract arXiv ID

Parse the arXiv ID from various input formats:

Input Format	Example	Extracted ID
Raw ID	2301.07041	2301.07041
arXiv URL	https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07041	2301.07041
AlphaXiv URL	https://alphaxiv.org/abs/2301.07041	2301.07041
With version	2301.07041v2	2301.07041v2

Pattern: \d{4}\.\d{4,5}(v\d+)?

Step 2: Resolve Paper Version

Fetch the paper metadata to get the versionId:

GET https://alphaxiv.org/api/papers/{arxivId}

Extract the versionId from the response (used in the next step).

If the API returns an error, try without the version suffix (e.g., 2301.07041 instead of 2301.07041v2).

Step 3: Fetch Structured Overview

Fetch the machine-readable paper overview:

GET https://alphaxiv.org/api/papers/{versionId}/overview

The response contains a structured summary with sections:

• Problem: What problem does this paper address?
• Approach: What method or technique was used?
• Key Insights: What are the most important findings?
• Results: What were the quantitative/qualitative results?
• Limitations: What are the acknowledged limitations?

Step 4: Present Summary

Display the structured overview in a readable format:

## 📄 [Paper Title]

**arXiv**: {id} | **Authors**: {authors} | **Published**: {date}

### Problem
{problem statement}

### Approach
{methodology}

### Key Insights
{key findings}

### Results
{results summary}

### Limitations
{limitations}

---
Source: https://alphaxiv.org/abs/{arxivId}

Step 5: Save Research Note (Optional)

Ask via AskUserQuestion: "Would you like to save this to your research notes?"

Options:

• Save to docs/research/
• Skip

If saving, create docs/research/YYYY-MM-DD-{arxiv-id}-{slug}.md:

---
type: paper
arxiv-id: {arxivId}
title: "{title}"
authors: [{author1}, {author2}]
date-read: {today}
published: {paper-date}
tags: []
relevance: medium
---

# {title}

**arXiv**: [{arxivId}](https://arxiv.org/abs/{arxivId}) | **AlphaXiv**: [discussion](https://alphaxiv.org/abs/{arxivId})

## Problem
{problem}

## Approach
{approach}

## Key Insights
{insights}

## Results
{results}

## Limitations
{limitations}

## My Notes

<!-- Add your annotations here -->

## Related Work

<!-- Links to related papers or docs -->

After saving, ask:

"Saved. Would you like to link this paper to an existing artifact?"

Options:

• Link to a spec (docs/specs/)
• Link to a plan (docs/plans/)
• Link to an ADR (docs/adr/)
• Done

If linking, use Edit to add a related-papers: field to the target artifact's YAML frontmatter.

Error Handling

• API unavailable: Fall back to fetching the arXiv abstract page via WebFetch from https://arxiv.org/abs/{id} and present the abstract instead
• Paper not found on AlphaXiv: Inform the user, offer to fetch from arXiv directly
• Invalid ID format: Show expected format and ask again

Key Principles

• Save as reference, not prescription — paper notes are for understanding, not spec requirements
• Tag for discoverability — always suggest 2-3 relevant tags before saving
• Link to work — help connect paper insights to ongoing plans/specs