Multi source literature brief

Purpose

Build a compact cross-source literature brief for a query by aggregating multiple official scholarly APIs into one normalized JSON report.

When to use

• You want a quick cross-check of literature coverage across general and biomedical indexes.
• You need a reusable JSON brief before deeper paper triage or ranking.
• You want a small overlap view by DOI or title across sources.

When not to use

• You need exhaustive retrieval for a systematic review.
• You need full-text mining, citation graphs, or advanced deduplication.
• You need offline-only execution.

Inputs

• Query string
• Per-source result limit
• Optional output path
• Optional NCBI/OpenAlex etiquette fields such as --email or --mailto

Outputs

• JSON report with per-source counts, normalized top results, and cross-source overlap candidates

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Network access to OpenAlex, Europe PMC, Crossref, and NCBI E-utilities

Procedure

1. Run python3 skills/scientific-knowledge/multi-source-literature-brief/scripts/build_literature_brief.py --query "single-cell RNA-seq" --limit 2 --out skills/scientific-knowledge/multi-source-literature-brief/assets/single_cell_literature_brief.json.
2. Inspect the sources section to compare the top normalized results from each API.
3. Review overlap_summary to see which DOI or title candidates appear in more than one source.

Validation

• The command exits successfully.
• All four source blocks are present.
• Each source returns at least one normalized result for a known query.

Failure modes and fixes

• NCBI rate limiting: rerun after a short pause or pass --email; the wrapper already retries transient 429 responses.
• Sparse Crossref hits: keep the query phrase concise because Crossref is title-oriented here.
• Query drift across sources: use quoted phrases or a more specific biomedical term.

Safety and limits

• This skill aggregates public bibliographic metadata only.
• It does not infer scientific truth or replace manual review.

Example

• python3 skills/scientific-knowledge/multi-source-literature-brief/scripts/build_literature_brief.py --query "CRISPR screen melanoma" --limit 1

Provenance

• OpenAlex API: https://docs.openalex.org/how-to-use-the-api/api-overview
• Europe PMC RESTful Web Service: https://europepmc.org/RestfulWebService
• Crossref REST API: https://www.crossref.org/documentation/retrieve-metadata/rest-api/
• NCBI E-utilities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25501/

Related skills

• openalex-literature-search
• europepmc-method-triage
• crossref-metadata-search
• ncbi-pubmed-search