Bibliography Filter

Produce and validate a cited-only bibliography, then replace the manuscript's canonical .bib only after explicit approval. In an Overleaf-linked project, the resolved Overleaf bibliography is canonical; a wrapper-local copy is not a second authority.

When to Use

• Before submission — strip unused references from the bibliography
• When a shared .bib (e.g., Paperpile/Paperpile export) contains hundreds of entries but the paper cites a subset
• To reduce .bib file size for Overleaf or arXiv upload
• As a cleanup step after major revision (removed sections may leave orphan citations)

Process

Step 1: Locate files

If given a directory, resolve the actual manuscript source first:

• For paper-<arm>/paper, run realpath/readlink and inspect the resolved Overleaf target before declaring a bibliography missing.
• Read \bibliography{...} or \addbibresource{...} from the canonical driver and resolve the referenced .bib relative to that source tree.
• Do not select a project-root export, backup, or stale wrapper copy merely because it has the same filename.