Scholar Sidekick (REST API) — Citations, Retraction & Open-Access

Turn a scholarly identifier into a formatted citation, a bibliography file, or an integrity check (retraction / open-access / fabrication), via a documented REST API. No API key and no install required — plain HTTPS calls over curl. An optional free first-party key (ssk_…, from /account) or RapidAPI key only raises rate limits.

Prefer the scholar-sidekick-mcp skill instead if your host already has the Scholar Sidekick MCP server connected — same capabilities as native tool calls. This skill is the zero-setup path that works in any agent that can run curl.

When to Use

• The user has an identifier (DOI, PMID, PMCID, ISBN, arXiv, ISSN, ADS bibcode, WHO IRIS URL) and wants metadata, a formatted citation, or a bibliography file.
• "Cite this in APA/Vancouver/Chicago…", "give me a BibTeX/RIS file", "export these refs".
• "Has this been retracted?", "is this open access?", "is this citation real / did you make it up?"
• Do NOT use to search for papers by topic — that's discovery (see the arxiv skill). This assumes you already have an identifier.