Bibkit: A BibTeX Toolbox for LaTeX Projects

中文文档：README_CN.md

Bibkit is a command-line toolbox for managing BibTeX (.bib) files in LaTeX projects. It analyzes your .tex source to understand what references are actually used, and provides utilities to keep your bibliography clean and consistent.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Commands
  • bibkit clean
• Roadmap
• Supported Citation Commands
• Supported BibTeX Features
• Contributing
• License

Installation

git clone https://github.com/ZBigFish/bibkit.git
cd bibkit
pip install -e .

The bibkit command is available globally after installation. You can also use python -m bibkit.

Commands

bibkit clean

Remove or comment out unused entries from your .bib files based on actual \cite usage.

# Run from your LaTeX project root
bibkit clean

# Or specify a path
bibkit clean /path/to/my-paper

# Preview first
bibkit clean --dry-run

Features:

• Auto-detects the main .tex via \documentclass; prompts for choice when multiple versions exist
• Recursively follows \input/\include to collect all citations across sub-files
• Auto-discovers .bib files from \bibliography{...} and \addbibresource{...}
• Non-destructive by default — writes a new_XXX.bib, never touches originals
• crossref parent entries are kept automatically (transitive resolution)
• Handles \nocite{*} — all entries preserved

Options:

Example output:

$ bibkit clean /path/to/paper

Main file: main.tex
  (with 7 included .tex file(s))

Scanned 8 .tex file(s), found 55 unique citation key(s).

--- refs.bib ---
  Total entries: 75
  Entries to keep:   55
  Entries to removed: 20
    - spencer2016causes
    - goodfellow2014generative
    ...
  Wrote to new_refs.bib (20 entries removed).

Done.

Roadmap

Commands planned for future releases:

Have a feature request? Open an issue.

Supported Citation Commands

\cite \citep \citet \citeauthor \citeyear \citealp \citealt \parencite \textcite \footcite \autocite \supercite \fullcite \Cite \Citep \Citet (capitalized) \cite* (starred)

Supports optional arguments (\cite[page 3]{key}), multi-key (\cite{key1,key2}), and \nocite{*}.

Supported BibTeX Features

• All standard entry types: @article, @inproceedings, @book, @incollection, @misc, and more
• @string, @comment, @preamble blocks are always preserved
• Nested braces in field values ({CNN}, {\L}ukasz) handled correctly
• crossref fields resolved transitively — parent entries kept automatically

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Star History

License

MIT