pynakes

pynakes is a command-line bibliography maintenance engine for BibTeX, BibLaTeX, and JabRef-compatible files. It supports inspection, validation, previewed edits, and structured output for people, scripts, and CI.

The Python CLI makes small, explicit, reviewable changes to .bib files — minimal diffs, dry-run previews, and atomic writes — and reports every change as structured JSON.

Requires Python 3.11+ and is packaged as an OS-independent CLI and library.

Untouched entries write back byte-for-byte — no hidden reformatting, reordering, or re-quoting. The file stays diff-friendly in git and yours for decades.

Named after the Pinakes, Callimachus's catalog of the Library of Alexandria — antiquity's first bibliography. A .bib file is the index card; a pinax is the card together with the shelf it points at.

Why pynakes

• Reviewable by design. Modifying commands support --dry-run --diff for review before writing. Writes are atomic and re-parse-validated; --backup optionally retains the previous file. Ambiguous cases — conflicting merges, duplicate DOIs — are reported with exit code 2 rather than guessed.
• Round-trip fidelity. An entry you don't touch is written back byte-for-byte. pynakes never normalizes whitespace, reorders fields, or re-quotes values behind your back — so diffs stay tiny and reviewable.
• Automation and CI support. JSON output and exit codes, machine-readable capabilities, structured change plans, and --strict / pre-commit gates allow callers to inspect outcomes without rewriting bibliography text.
• Explicit network access. Network use is limited to ref import, asset fetch, and operations invoked with --online.
• Preservation-first interoperability. Untouched BibTeX/BibLaTeX source and JabRef metadata round-trip unchanged. pynakes-meta holds native settings; JabRef metadata can be preserved, adopted, and projected explicitly.

Two workflows

1. Bibliography engine

Load any .bib file the BibTeX/BibLaTeX toolchain produces, then:

• Inspect — entry count, encoding, duplicates, JabRef metadata
• Lint — validate required fields, DOI shape, key conflicts (CI-gate multiple files)
• Normalize — authors, DOIs, months, journals, saveActions pipeline
• Format — lint-gated, deterministic layout rewrites with portable field/entry/block ordering and opt-in safe value wrapping
• Import by DOI, repository/preprint id, ISBN, or supported publisher URL, with configurable key generation, or add a manual entry
• Dedupe & merge — detect and resolve duplicates, with conflict reporting
• Bulk-edit fields — set, rename, move, append, clear, or protect fields on matching references
• Manage groups and keys — list, rename, repair, generate from patterns
• Convert between BibTeX/BibLaTeX dialects; import/export CSL-JSON, RIS, MODS, and EndNote; export CSV
• Track citation usage — find cited, unused, and missing keys in .tex or .aux sources
• Scrub — write a public copy without private fields, metadata blocks, or comments, for an arXiv upload or a submission bundle
• Remove entries with a single command

All through the standardized lifecycle: load → stage → preview/diff → commit. JabRef v5.15 interoperability covers metadata preservation and classification, offline-compatible saveActions, all four group types, save-order configuration, and common key-pattern markers and modifiers. Unsupported formatter names are reported rather than silently applied. Every modifying command supports --dry-run --diff and atomic writes; backups are opt-in.

2. Pinax — the corpus layer

Opt in by setting pinax-files-dir in the library metadata. Now every citation key can carry materials:

• arXiv download — PDFs and source bundles, automatically fetched, verified, and extracted with provenance tracking (source hash, download timestamp)
• Open-access published PDFs — resolved from DOI via OpenAlex, CrossRef, and publisher-specific URL overrides; .published.pdf lands only for genuinely OA papers, never misidentified repository mirrors
• asset fetch — download configured materials for all entries or one key
• asset check — validate presence, detect orphans, verify checksums, optionally fix (--fix)
• ref remove — removes both the entry and its materials by default
• Coordinated key edits — renaming a key moves its materials
• corpus combine/corpus split — materials follow their entries

The .bib stays the source of truth; Pinax just keeps the shelf tidy.

Installation

pip install pynakes

For development (with test/lint tools):

git clone https://github.com/maiani/pynakes.git
cd pynakes
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pre-commit install  # enable ruff hooks on commit

See the Installation guide for shell completion and troubleshooting.

Quick start

Python

The curated package API covers the common application workflow without going through the CLI:

from pynakes import Bibliography, CanonicalLayout

bib = Bibliography.open("refs.bib")
issues = bib.lint()

bib.format(CanonicalLayout(field_order="preferred", wrap_values="stable"))
print(bib.diff())
bib.commit(backup=True)

Bibliography stages changes in memory. Use preview(), diff(), and change_plan() before commit(). Lower-level parsers, writers, models, and operation modules remain available for applications that need them.

Command line

# Create a new library, then inspect and check for issues
pynakes init mylib.bib
pynakes inspect mylib.bib
pynakes lint mylib.bib --json

# Import by DOI, repository id, ISBN, or supported URL, or add one manually
pynakes ref import 10.5555/example mylib.bib
pynakes ref import arXiv:2301.00001 mylib.bib
pynakes ref import PMID:12345678 mylib.bib
pynakes ref import 978-0-00-000000-2 mylib.bib
pynakes ref import INSPIRE:Author:2024abc mylib.bib
pynakes ref import https://link.springer.com/article/10.5555/example mylib.bib
pynakes ref add Manual2026 mylib.bib --field title="Manual Reference" --field year=2026
pynakes ref add  # interactive
pynakes ref show Manual2026 mylib.bib
pynakes ref edit Manual2026 mylib.bib --field year=2027 --clear-field note
pynakes ref edit Manual2026 mylib.bib  # interactive

# Preview the normalization pass before committing
pynakes normalize mylib.bib --dry-run --diff

# Remove entries by citation key (with pinax material cleanup)
pynakes ref remove mylib.bib DeprecatedKey2020

# Rename a citation key across the .bib file and .tex sources
pynakes keys rename mylib.bib OldKey2020 NewKey2020 paper.tex chapters/

# Fetch configured materials for one entry (Pinax mode)
pynakes asset fetch arXivKey2024 mylib.bib

# Search entries
pynakes search mylib.bib "neural network" --json

# Gate a build: fail if any .bib has errors
pynakes lint mylib.bib chapters/*.bib --strict

# Write a public copy for arXiv: no private fields, metadata blocks, or comments
pynakes scrub mylib.bib --out arxiv/refs.bib --diff
pynakes scrub arxiv/refs.bib --check   # exits 1 if anything private is left

# Shell completion for cite keys (bash/zsh/fish)
eval "$(pynakes --show-completion bash)"

When the current directory contains exactly one .bib file, its path may be omitted from commands that operate on a single library (for example, pynakes normalize --dry-run).

Commands still require an explicit path when there are multiple .bib files.

See the Quick Start guide and Usage guide for the full command surface.

Write behavior

Bibliography edits use a staged load → preview → commit lifecycle:

• Most modifying commands support --dry-run and --diff
• Commits prepare and re-parse a temporary file before replacing the destination
• --backup retains the previous contents where the command supports it
• Ambiguous operations report a conflict and exit 2
• --json emits structured results for programmatic use

These mechanisms reduce common write risks; they are not a formal guarantee against every process, operating-system, or storage failure.

For automated workflows

Scripts and LLM-assisted tools can use the same command interface as interactive users:

• --json returns machine-readable results with status, warnings, and errors
• pynakes capabilities --json describes supported operations
• Exit codes: 0 success, 1 error, 2 conflict

See the LLM Integration guide for the full JSON envelope and recommended workflows.

Status

v0.5.0 is the first public alpha. It includes the preservation-first parser/writer, the documented maintenance command surface, broad JabRef v5.15 interoperability, machine-readable command discovery, and the optional Pinax corpus layer with arXiv and published-PDF material workflows. CI tests Python 3.11–3.13 and enforces a 90% coverage floor.

Until v1.0, pynakes does not guarantee backward compatibility for the Python API, CLI syntax, or JSON envelopes. The project aims to keep automation workflows predictable and documents breaking changes in the changelog, but production users should pin exact 0.x versions.

Parser conformance is verified against the TeX Live 2026 toolchain (BibTeX 0.99d, BibLaTeX 3.21, Biber 2.21). The project roadmap is documented in DEVPLAN.md.

Documentation

• Quick Start
• Usage Guide
• Installation
• LLM Integration
• Git Workflows: pre-commit & CI
• Architecture
• Pinax — the corpus layer
• API Reference

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.