/alphaxiv

name: alphaxiv
description: Quick single-paper lookup via AlphaXiv LLM-optimized summaries with tiered source fallback. Use when user says "explain this paper", "summarize paper", pastes an arXiv/AlphaXiv URL, or provides a bare arXiv ID for quick understanding - not for broad literature search.
argument-hint: "[arxiv-id-or-url]"
allowed-tools: Bash(*), Read, Write, Glob

AlphaXiv Paper Lookup

Lookup paper: $ARGUMENTS

> Quick single-paper reader with tiered source fallback (overview → full markdown → LaTeX source). Powered by [AlphaXiv](https://www.alphaxiv.org).

Role & Positioning

This skill is the **quick single-paper reader** that returns LLM-optimized summaries:

| Skill | Source | Best for | |-------|--------|----------| | `/arxiv` | arXiv API | Batch search, PDF download, metadata | | `/deepxiv` | DeepXiv SDK | Progressive section-level reading | | `/semantic-scholar` | S2 API | Published venue metadata, citation counts | | **`/alphaxiv`** | **www.alphaxiv.org** | **Instant LLM-optimized summary of one paper, with LaTeX source fallback** |

**Do NOT use this skill for** topic discovery, broad literature search, or multi-paper surveys — use `/research-lit` or `/arxiv` instead.

Constants

• **OVERVIEW_URL** = `https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/{PAPER_ID}.md`
• **ABS_URL** = `https://www.alphaxiv.org/abs/{PAPER_ID}.md`
• **ARXIV_SRC_URL** = `https://arxiv.org/src/{PAPER_ID}`
• **ALPHAXIV_UA** = `Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/124.0.0.0 Safari/537.36` — any modern browser UA works; update the version numbers if AlphaXiv starts blocking this value again

> Overrides (append to arguments): > - `/alphaxiv 2401.12345` — quick overview > - `/alphaxiv "https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12345"` — auto-extract ID > - `/alphaxiv 2401.12345 - depth: src` — force LaTeX source inspection > - `/alphaxiv 2401.12345 - depth: abs` — force full markdown

Workflow

Step 1: Parse Arguments & Extract Paper ID

Parse `$ARGUMENTS` to extract a bare arXiv paper ID. Accept these input formats:

• `https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12345` or `https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12345v2`
• `https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.12345`
• `https://alphaxiv.org/overview/2401.12345` or `https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/2401.12345`
• `https://alphaxiv.org/abs/2401.12345` or `https://www.alphaxiv.org/abs/2401.12345`
• `2401.12345` or `2401.12345v2`

Strip version suffixes (`v1`, `v2`, ...) for API calls. Store as `PAPER_ID`.

Parse optional directives:

• **`- depth: overview|abs|src`**: force a specific tier instead of cascading

Step 2: Fetch AlphaXiv Overview (Tier 1 — Fastest)

Use `curl` with `{ALPHAXIV_UA}` to fetch the AlphaXiv overview. AlphaXiv may return 403 for non-browser User-Agents; setting a standard browser UA reduces false positives from bot-detection:

curl -sL --max-time 15 -A "{ALPHAXIV_UA}" "https://www.alphaxiv.org/overview/{PAPER_ID}.md"

This returns a **structured, LLM-optimized report** designed for machine consumption. Use this as the default and preferred source.

If the overview answers the user's question, **stop here**. Do not fetch deeper tiers unnecessarily.

If the request fails (HTTP 4xx — 403 bot-block or 404 not-yet-processed) or returns empty content, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3: Fetch Full AlphaXiv Markdown (Tier 2 — More Detail)

Use `curl` with `{ALPHAXIV_UA}` to fetch the full paper markdown:

curl -sL --max-time 15 -A "{ALPHAXIV_UA}" "https://www.alphaxiv.org/abs/{PAPER_ID}.md"

This provides the full paper body as markdown. Use when the user needs:

• Specific methodology details
• Detailed experimental results
• Particular sections not covered in the overview

If this still does not answer the question, proceed to Step 4.

Step 4: Fetch arXiv LaTeX Source (Tier 3 — Deepest)

When the overview and full markdown are both insufficient (e.g., the user asks about equations, proofs, appendix details, or implementation specifics), download the paper's LaTeX source from `https://arxiv.org/src/{PAPER_ID}`.

The source is a `.tar.gz` archive. Download it to a temporary directory, extract it, and list the `.tex` files inside.

Then inspect **only** the files needed to answer the question. Prioritize:

1. Top-level `*.tex` files (usually the main document) 2. Files referenced by `\input{}` or `\include{}` 3. Appendices, tables, or sections directly related to the user's question

**Do NOT read the entire source tree by default.** Read selectively.

Temporary source artifacts live under `/tmp`. Do not rely on persistence.

Step 5: Present Results

Default Answer Shape

## [Paper Title]

- **arXiv**: [PAPER_ID] — https://arxiv.org/abs/[PAPER_ID]
- **Source depth**: overview | abs | src

### Summary
[2-3 sentence summary]

### Key Points
- [point 1]
- [point 2]
- [point 3]

### Answer to Your Question
[Direct answer if the user asked a specific question]

If the user only asks for one specific detail, answer it directly — skip the full template.

**After presenting the summary, you MUST proceed to Step 6 before ending the turn.**

Step 6: Research Wiki Ingest

**You MUST always run the bash block below — it checks for `research-wiki/` internally and exits silently when absent.** Do NOT skip this step based on your own directory check; the bash block handles that for you.

Substitute only `<paper_arxiv_id>` and `<thesis>`; keep `${ARIS_REPO:-...}` as-is so an already-set env var is preserved.

if [ -d research-wiki/ ]; then
  cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)" || exit 1
  ARIS_REPO="${ARIS_REPO:-$(awk -F'\t' '$1=="repo_root"{print $2; exit}' .aris/installed-skills.txt 2>/dev/null)}"
  if [ -z "${ARIS_REPO:-}" ] && [ -f "$HOME/.aris/repo" ]; then
    ARIS_REPO=$(cat "$HOME/.aris/repo" 2>/dev/null) || true
  fi
  WIKI_SCRIPT=".aris/tools/research_wiki.py"
  [ -f "$WIKI_SCRIPT" ] || WIKI_SCRIPT="tools/research_wiki.py"
  [ -f "$WIKI_SCRIPT" ] |