# Citation Audit

> Zero-context verification that every bibliographic entry in the paper is real, correctly attributed, and used in a context the cited paper actually supports — catching hallucinated authors, wrong years, fabricated venues, version mismatches, and wrong-context citations. Use when user says \"审查引用\", \"check citations\", \"citation audit\", \"verify references\", \"引用核对\", or before submission to e…

- **Type:** Skill
- **Install:** `agentstack add skill-wanshuiyin-auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep-citation-audit`
- **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior
- **Seller:** [wanshuiyin](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/wanshuiyin)
- **Installs:** 0
- **Category:** [AI & ML](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/ai-and-ml)
- **Latest version:** 0.1.0
- **License:** MIT
- **Upstream author:** [wanshuiyin](https://github.com/wanshuiyin)
- **Source:** https://github.com/wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/tree/main/skills/citation-audit

## Install

```sh
agentstack add skill-wanshuiyin-auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep-citation-audit
```

Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

## About

# Citation Audit

> 🔒 **Do not wrap this skill in `/loop`, `/schedule`, or `CronCreate`.** It is
> verdict-bearing — it judges bibliographic correctness. Re-running that verdict
> on a timer adds no new signal (it changes only when the *bibliography*
> changes). Schedule the *external wait that precedes it* — bibliography
> finalized → then audit **once**. See
> [`shared-references/external-cadence.md`](../shared-references/external-cadence.md).

Verify every `\cite{...}` in a paper against three independent layers:

1. **Existence** — the cited paper actually exists at the claimed arXiv ID / DOI / venue.
2. **Metadata correctness** — author names, year, venue, and title match canonical sources (DBLP, arXiv, ACL Anthology, Nature, OpenReview, etc.).
3. **Context appropriateness** — the cited paper actually supports the claim it is being used to support in the manuscript.

This skill is the fourth layer of \aris{}'s evidence-and-claim assurance, complementing `experiment-audit` (code), `result-to-claim` (science verdict), and `paper-claim-audit` (numerical claims). Together they form a bottom-up integrity stack from raw evaluation code to manuscript bibliography.

## When to Use This Skill

**Run before submission.** The right gating point is:
- After `paper-write` has produced the LaTeX draft and bib file
- After `paper-claim-audit` has verified numerical claims
- Before final `paper-compile` for submission

**Do not** run this on a half-written draft — most of the work is in cross-checking each `\cite` against context, which is wasted on placeholder text.

## What This Skill Catches

The dangerous citation problems are **not** wildly fake citations — those are easy to spot. The dangerous ones are:

- **Wrong-context citations**: real paper, but the cited claim is not what that paper actually establishes (e.g., citing Self-Refine to support "self-feedback produces correlated errors" — Self-Refine actually argues the opposite).
- **Author hallucinations**: anonymous-author placeholders that slipped through, missing co-authors, wrong order.
- **Title drift**: arXiv v1 vs v3 with different titles silently merged.
- **Venue confusion**: arXiv preprint cited but the official venue is now CVPR/ICML/NeurIPS — using the wrong record.
- **Year mismatch**: arXiv 2023 preprint with 2024 conference acceptance, year reported inconsistently.
- **Phantom DOIs**: DOI looks real but does not resolve.
- **Self-citation drift**: your own prior work cited with year off by one.

## Constants

- **REVIEWER_MODEL = `gpt-5.5`** — Used via Codex MCP. Default for cross-model review with web access.
- **CONTEXT_POLICY = `fresh`** — Each audit run uses a new reviewer thread (REVIEWER_BIAS_GUARD). Never `codex-reply`.
- **WEB_SEARCH = required** — The reviewer must perform real web/DBLP/arXiv lookups, not pattern-match from memory.
- **OUTPUT = `CITATION_AUDIT.md`** — Human-readable per-entry verdict report.
- **STATE = `CITATION_AUDIT.json`** — Machine-readable verdict ledger consumable by downstream tools.
- **SOFT_ONLY = `false`** — When true (set via `— soft-only` / `— soft_only` flag), the audit runs all three layers normally but **forbids any `.bib` file mutation**. Findings that would otherwise mutate the bib (FIX / REPLACE / REMOVE) are translated into per-occurrence sentence-rewrite proposals against the citing `*.tex` files. Used by `/resubmit-pipeline` Phase 1 to honor the user's hard "freeze the bib" constraint.
- **RENDER_HTML = true** — When `true` (default), auto-render `CITATION_AUDIT.md` to HTML after writing the report. Uses **full Codex review gate** (audit-class artifact — render-fidelity check matches the skill's cross-model audit invariant). Set `false` to skip, or pass `— render html: false`.

## Workflow

### Step 1: Discover bib file and section files

Locate:
- `references.bib` (or `paper.bib` / similar) under the paper directory
- All `*.tex` files containing `\cite{...}` calls (typically `sec/` or `sections/`)

If multiple bib files exist, audit each separately.

### Step 2: Extract all (cite-key, context) pairs

For each `\cite{key1,key2,...}` invocation in the paper:
- Record the cite key
- Record the file + line number
- Record the surrounding sentence (≥ 1 full sentence around the cite, for context check)

Output a flat list of `(key, file, line, surrounding_sentence)` tuples.

Also build the inverse: for each bib entry, the list of all places it is cited.

Define two protocol sets used throughout the rest of the workflow: `cited_keys` is the set of unique cite keys appearing in any `\cite{...}` invocation across the audited `*.tex` files (de-duplicated), and `bib_keys` is the set of keys parsed from the audited bib file(s). `cited_keys` drives Step 3 (audit only cited entries); `bib_keys \ cited_keys` is the uncited residual surfaced by the `--uncited` opt-in.

If the user passed `--uncited`, also compute the set difference `bib_keys \ cited_keys` here and stash it for use in Steps 5 and the JSON aggregation; see "Uncited Entry Detection (opt-in)" below for the protocol. The set-diff is a string operation only and does not consume reviewer budget.

Save the extracted contexts to `paper/.aris/citation-audit/contexts.txt` so the reviewer can read it directly. Use the paper-dir-relative path `.aris/citation-audit/contexts.txt` when recording the file in `audited_input_hashes`; do not stage under `/tmp` or other transient locations that the verifier cannot rehash later.

### Step 3: Send each entry to fresh cross-model reviewer

For each **cited** bib entry — i.e., each key in `cited_keys` with at least one extracted citation context — invoke `mcp__codex__codex` (NOT `codex-reply` — fresh thread per entry, or batch with explicit per-entry isolation). Do **not** send entries in `bib_keys \ cited_keys` to the reviewer; those are detect-only and surface only when `--uncited` is explicitly enabled (see "Uncited Entry Detection" below).

```
mcp__codex__codex:
  model: gpt-5.5
  config: {"model_reasoning_effort": "xhigh"}
  sandbox: read-only
  prompt: |
    You are auditing a bibliographic entry. Use web/DBLP/arXiv search.

    ## Bib entry
    @article{key2024example,
      author = {...}, title = {...}, journal = {...}, year = {...}, ...
    }

    ## Where this entry is cited in the paper
    [paste extracted contexts]

    For this entry, verify:
    1. EXISTENCE: does this paper exist at the claimed arXiv ID / DOI / venue?
       Output: YES / NO / UNCERTAIN, with the verifying URL.
    2. METADATA: are author names, year, venue, title correct?
       For each, output: correct / wrong: should be ... / typo: ...
    3. CONTEXT: for each use, does the cited paper actually support the surrounding claim?
       Output per-use: SUPPORTS / WEAK / WRONG, with one-sentence reasoning.

    VERDICT: KEEP / FIX / REPLACE / REMOVE
    - KEEP: entry is clean, all uses are appropriate
    - FIX: metadata needs correction; uses are appropriate
    - REPLACE: cite is wrong-context, find a different paper that actually supports the claim
    - REMOVE: entry is hallucinated or unsupportable

    Be honest. If you cannot verify online, say UNCERTAIN; do not guess.
```

Save the response to `.aris/traces/citation-audit/_runNN/.md` per the review-tracing protocol.

### Step 4: Aggregate verdicts

Build `CITATION_AUDIT.json` following the schema defined in **"Submission
Artifact Emission"** below (single authoritative schema for this file).
Per-entry ledger data goes under `details.per_entry`, not under a
top-level `entries` field. The top-level `verdict` is a single overall
value (PASS / WARN / FAIL / NOT_APPLICABLE / BLOCKED / ERROR) derived
from per-entry verdicts per the decision table in "Submission Artifact
Emission"; the top-level `summary` is a one-line human-readable string.

Concretely, `details` carries the per-entry ledger:

```json
"details": {
  "total_entries": 29,
  "counts": { "KEEP": 11, "FIX": 14, "REPLACE": 3, "REMOVE": 1 },
  "per_entry": [
    {
      "key": "lu2024aiscientist",
      "verdict": "KEEP",
      "axis_failures": [],
      "uses": [
        {"file": "sections/1.intro.tex", "line": 11, "verdict": "SUPPORTS"},
        {"file": "sections/6.related.tex", "line": 8, "verdict": "SUPPORTS"}
      ]
    },
    {
      "key": "madaan2023selfrefine",
      "verdict": "FIX",
      "axis_failures": ["CONTEXT"],
      "uses": [
        {"file": "sections/2.overview.tex", "line": 42, "verdict": "WRONG",
         "note": "Self-Refine demonstrates iterative improvement, not correlated errors"},
        {"file": "sections/6.related.tex", "line": 13, "verdict": "SUPPORTS"}
      ]
    }
  ]
}
```

See "Submission Artifact Emission" for the full artifact (top-level
fields `audit_skill`, `verdict`, `reason_code`, `summary`,
`audited_input_hashes`, `trace_path`, `thread_id`, `reviewer_model`,
`reviewer_reasoning`, `generated_at`, `details`).

### Step 5: Generate human-readable report

Write `CITATION_AUDIT.md`:

```markdown
# Citation Audit Report

**Date**: 2026-04-19
**Bib file(s)**: references.bib
**Total entries**: 29

## Summary
| Verdict | Count |
|---------|------|
| KEEP    | 11   |
| FIX     | 14   |
| REPLACE | 3    |
| REMOVE  | 1    |

## Priority Fixes (CRITICAL — apply before submission)

### REMOVE: anon2025placeholder
- Author listed as "Anonymous" — canonical record exists with real authors and full title
- Title is incomplete
- ACTION: Replace key with the canonical citekey, update authors and title

### REPLACE-CONTEXT: example2023priorwork in sec/2.overview.tex:42
- Cited to support a specific technical claim
- The cited paper actually demonstrates a different (related but distinct) phenomenon
- ACTION: Rewrite the sentence; cite the prior work for what it actually establishes

[... continues for each entry ...]

## All-Clean Entries (no action needed)

[list of KEEP keys]
```

When `--uncited` is set, append the following section after "All-Clean Entries":

```markdown
## Uncited Entries (opt-in)

The following bib entries are present in the audited bib file(s) but are not referenced by any `\cite{...}` in the paper body:

- `author2010example` — suggestion: prune (uncited; no local evidence of intent)
- `someone2015othercite` — suggestion: prune (uncited; no local evidence of intent)
- `third2024todo` — suggestion: check (a `% TODO: cite third2024todo` comment was found in `sections/3.related.tex`)

This section is detect-only; it does not change the top-level verdict.
```

### Step 6: Apply fixes (interactive)

For each FIX/REPLACE/REMOVE verdict, prompt the user:

```
Fix [key]?
  Change: 
  Files affected: references.bib + sec/X.tex:Y
[Apply / Skip / Defer]
```

If `AUTO_APPLY = true`, apply all FIX-level changes (metadata corrections only). REPLACE and REMOVE always require human approval — they involve content changes.

### Step 7: Recompile and verify

```bash
latexmk -C && latexmk -pdf -interaction=nonstopmode main.tex
```

Confirm:
- No new `Citation undefined` warnings
- No `Reference undefined` warnings
- Page count unchanged or only minimally affected by metadata fixes

## Uncited Entry Detection (opt-in)

**Default**: disabled. Existing users see no behavior change — only `\cite{...}` keys are audited, and bib entries with no `\cite` reference in the manuscript are silently ignored.

**Opt-in**: pass `--uncited` on invocation. The skill then performs a set-diff after Step 2 and reports bib entries that appear in any audited bib file(s) but are not cited anywhere in the paper. Detect-only — uncited entries are **not** sent to the cross-model reviewer, so there is no extra reviewer/web-lookup cost.

### Why opt-in
This skill's headline output is the three-axis audit on cited entries. Surfacing uncited bib entries by default would (a) change long-form output for every existing run, and (b) noise up the verdict for users who intentionally maintain a superset bib file (e.g., shared lab bib, in-progress section reorder where the cite has been removed but the entry intentionally retained). The flag preserves zero behavior change for existing callers.

### Effect when enabled

When `--uncited` is set:

- `CITATION_AUDIT.md` gains a `## Uncited Entries (opt-in)` section listing the keys with a one-line suggestion each: `prune` (entry is dead weight; recommend deleting) or `check` (entry might be intentional; flag for user review). Default suggestion is `prune`; only emit `check` when there is concrete local evidence (e.g., a TODO comment in a `.tex` file mentioning the key, or a recently removed `\cite` visible in `git diff`). Do not infer intent from the bib key string alone.
- `CITATION_AUDIT.json` `details` gains an `uncited_entries` array; see "Submission Artifact Emission" below for the schema.
- The top-level `verdict` is **unchanged**: uncited entries do not upgrade or downgrade the PASS / WARN / FAIL / etc. classification. The `reason_code` and `summary` are likewise unchanged in shape; only the `details.uncited_entries` field appears.
- Verifier gates and downstream skills (`paper-writing` Phase 6, `verify_paper_audits.sh`) MUST NOT treat the presence of `uncited_entries` as a blocking signal.

### When opt-in is appropriate

- Pre-submission cleanup (drop dead bib entries before sharing camera-ready ZIP).
- Shared lab bib file where the paper uses a subset and the user wants to confirm what is in scope.
- Recurring audits where the user has previously seen the uncited count and wants to track whether it changed.

### Fallback when bib enumeration fails

If `--uncited` is enabled but full bib-key enumeration fails (e.g., malformed bib syntax that the parser cannot recover), the cited-entry audit must still proceed if at all possible. In that case:

- Do **not** alter the top-level `verdict`, `reason_code`, or `summary`.
- Emit `details.uncited_entries` as an empty array `[]`.
- Add `details.uncited_entries_status: "unavailable"` plus a one-line note explaining why (e.g., `"bib parser could not enumerate keys; cited-entry audit completed normally"`).
- Verifier gates and downstream skills MUST treat `unavailable` the same as the field being absent: not blocking.

If the bib file cannot be read well enough to audit even the cited entries, fall back to the existing `BLOCKED` / `bib_unreadable` path defined in the verdict decision table; this is the same behavior as the no-flag default.

## Key Rules

- **Fresh reviewer thread per audit run** — never reuse prior review context
- **Web access required** — the reviewer must do real lookups, not memory pattern-match
- **Wrong-context > metadata** — a real paper used to support a wrong claim is more dangerous than a typo in author name
- **REPLACE/REMOVE require human approval** — never auto-modify content claims
- **Always emit, never block** — this skill always writes `CITATION_AUDIT.json` with a verdict; the decision to block finalization lives in `paper-writing` Phase 6 + `verify_paper_audits.sh`, driven by the `assurance` level. See "Submission Artifact Emission" below.
- **Run once per submission** — the audit is wall-clock expensive (web lookups for each entry); not for every save
- **Uncited detection is opt-in only** — never auto-enable; never block on uncited entries; existing callers must observe identical output if they do not pass `--uncited`
- **Under `--soft-only`, citation-audit emits text-rewrite proposals only; bib files are never mutated regardless of finding severity.** The audit semantics (existence + metadata + context) and the per-entry KEEP/FIX/REPLACE/REMOVE ledger are preserved verbatim; only the action layer is translated to per-occurrence sentence rewrites in the citing `*.tex` files. Refuse any downstream-proposed bib edit while `--soft-only` is set.

## Comparison with Other Audit Skills

| Skill | What it audits | What it catches |
|-------|---------------|-----------------|
| `/experiment-audit` | Evaluation code | Fake ground truth, self-normalized scores, phantom results |
| `/result-to-

…

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [wanshuiyin](https://github.com/wanshuiyin)
- **Source:** [wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep](https://github.com/wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep)
- **License:** MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free

## Security capabilities

Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access:

- **Network access:** no
- **Filesystem access:** no
- **Shell / process execution:** no
- **Environment & secrets:** no
- **Dynamic code execution:** no

*"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.*


## Versions

- **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source.

## Links

- Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-wanshuiyin-auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep-citation-audit
- Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/wanshuiyin
- Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse

---
Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. Every listing is security-reviewed. Creators keep 70%.