Claude Skill Citation Checker

check-citations

**Stop hallucinated citations before they reach your reviewer.**

A Claude Code skill that verifies every citation in your `.bib` file against three academic databases (CrossRef, Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex). Catches fabricated references, chimeric citations, and suspicious patterns — no API keys required.

Why This Exists

Problem	Scale
AI-generated citations are fabricated	6-55% depending on model
NeurIPS 2025 accepted papers contained 100+ fake refs	Source
Universities now treat fake citations as misconduct	Growing trend since 2024
Existing tools only check if DOIs resolve	They miss fabricated content

**This is the only tool that detects the actual hallucination problem** — not just broken links, but papers that don't exist.

Install

# Clone into your Claude Code skills directory
git clone https://github.com/PHY041/claude-skill-citation-checker.git ~/.claude/skills/check-citations

# Dependencies (just requests)
pip install requests

Then in Claude Code: `Use /check-citations to verify my bibliography`

Quick Start

# Check a single .bib file
python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib

# Check all .bib files in a project
python scripts/citation_checker.py path/to/thesis/

# JSON output for CI/CD
python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib --json

# Verbose (see API responses)
python scripts/citation_checker.py references.bib --verbose

What It Catches

1. Fully Fabricated Citations

Papers that don't exist in any database. The classic LLM hallucination.

  NOT FOUND (0 sources): [zhang2024unified]
    Title:   Unified Framework for Multi-Modal Reasoning in Dynamic Environments
    Authors: Zhang, Wei and Liu, Xiaoming and Chen, Yufei
    FLAG: NOT FOUND in any database — likely hallucinated

2. Chimeric Citations (Most Dangerous)

Real paper title + wrong authors. Looks legitimate on a quick Goo