Citation Verification Reference Guide

Verification principles plus runnable citation checkers for academic writing.

Position in the citation pipeline

This repository separates three citation questions that are routinely confused. Run them in order.

1. citation-verifier: is the bibliography a well-formed artifact? Duplicate keys, missing fields, DOI syntax, cited-but-undefined. Offline, immediate.
2. This skill: does the cited work exist, and does its metadata match what the manuscript says? Queries live scholarly APIs. This is the only stage that catches a fabricated citation carrying a well-formed DOI.
3. claim-source-verification: does the real, correctly-cited source actually support the sentence citing it?

None of the three substitutes for another. A clean local scan shows the bibliography is well-formed, not that the papers are real. A verified DOI shows the paper is real, not that it says what the sentence claims.