English | 中文

fastpaper CLI with Skill

A CLI tool that gives AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Opencode, etc.) the ability to search, download, and read academic papers and scientific literature. Ships with a SKILL that teaches agents how to pick sources and construct commands.

One command, one source, zero configuration. Parallel multi-source search is handled by the agent spawning multiple processes.

Install

CLI

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install zhangyee/tap/fastpaper

Shell script (macOS / Linux)

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/zhangyee/fastpaper-cli/releases/latest/download/fastpaper-cli-installer.sh | sh

PowerShell (Windows)

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/zhangyee/fastpaper-cli/releases/latest/download/fastpaper-cli-installer.ps1 | iex"

Cargo

cargo install fastpaper-cli

Skill

Install the skill so your AI agent knows how to use fastpaper. Uses Vercel Skills, a tool that installs SKILL.md files into agents:

npx skills add zhangyee/fastpaper-cli --skill fastpaper

The SKILL.md teaches the agent how to pick sources by domain and construct commands. Use --format json for structured output. All JSON fields use null for missing values (never omitted), so the schema is stable.

Quick start

# Search arXiv
fastpaper search arxiv "transformer attention mechanism"

# Search with filters
fastpaper search arxiv "large language model" --after 2024-01-01 --field cs.CL --limit 20

# Fetch a paper by DOI (auto-detects source)
fastpaper get 10.1038/nature12373

# Fetch by arXiv ID
fastpaper get 2301.08745

# Download PDF
fastpaper download arxiv 2301.08745

# Read full text
fastpaper read arxiv 2301.08745

# Read a specific section
fastpaper read pmc PMC7318926 --section methods

# Read a local PDF
fastpaper read local ./paper.pdf

# JSON output for scripting / AI agents
fastpaper search semantic "CRISPR gene editing" --format json

# Parallel multi-source search
fastpaper search arxiv "protein folding" --format json &
fastpaper search pubmed "protein folding" --format json &
fastpaper search semantic "protein folding" --format json &
wait

Sources

18 academic sources, each accessed independently per command.

Commands

search -- Search papers

fastpaper search <SOURCE> <QUERY> [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -n, --limit <N>        Max results [default: 10]
      --offset <N>       Skip first N results [default: 0]
      --sort <FIELD>     Sort by: relevance, date, citations [default: relevance]
      --author <NAME>    Filter by author
      --after <DATE>     Papers after YYYY-MM-DD
      --before <DATE>    Papers before YYYY-MM-DD
      --year <YEAR>      Papers in specific year
      --field <FIELD>    Field of study / category (e.g. cs.AI)
      --open-access      Only open access papers
  -f, --format <FMT>     table, json, jsonl, csv, bibtex [default: table]
  -o, --output <PATH>    Write results to file

get -- Fetch paper by identifier

Auto-detects source from identifier format (DOI, arXiv ID, PMID, PMC ID, URL).

fastpaper get <IDENTIFIER> [OPTIONS]

Options:
      --resolve           Find all available OA versions
      --with-citations    Include citation count and references
      --with-abstract     Include abstract

download -- Download PDF

fastpaper download <SOURCE> <IDENTIFIER> [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -d, --dir <PATH>       Download directory [default: ./papers]
      --filename <FMT>   Template: {id}, {title}, {authors}, {year}, {doi}
      --overwrite        Overwrite existing files
      --source-files     Download LaTeX source (arXiv only)

read -- Read paper content

fastpaper read <SOURCE> <IDENTIFIER> [OPTIONS]

Options:
      --section <SEC>    abstract, introduction, methods, results,
                         discussion, conclusion, references, full [default: full]
      --metadata-only    Only show metadata
      --raw              Raw text without formatting
      --max-length <N>   Truncate output to N characters
  -o, --output <PATH>    Write to file

sources -- List sources and capabilities

fastpaper sources [--check] [--capabilities]

completions -- Shell completions

fastpaper completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/fastpaper.fish
fastpaper completions zsh > ~/.zfunc/_fastpaper
fastpaper completions bash >> ~/.bashrc

Environment variables

All optional except where noted. 17 of 18 sources work with zero configuration.

Exit codes

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md and the developer docs under docs/.

Acknowledgements

This project was inspired by paper-search-mcp, an MCP server for searching and downloading academic papers from multiple sources. Many thanks to its authors for showing what a multi-source paper tool can look like.

License

GPL-3.0