refkit

refkit parses bibliography source, renders Citation Style Language citations and bibliographies, formats BibTeX, and preserves raw BibTeX for targeted field edits.

Install

python -m pip install refkit

RefKit supports Python 3.11 through 3.14. Pip selects a compatible native wheel when one is available. A source-distribution build requires a Rust toolchain and a working Python build environment.

Render A Citation

import refkit as rk

library = rk.Library.parse_bibtex(
    """
@article{doe2024,
  author = {Doe, Jane},
  title = {Fast Citations},
  year = {2024}
}
"""
)
document = rk.Document(library, rk.Style.load("apa"), locale="en-US")
rendered = document.render([rk.Citation("intro", "doe2024")])

print(rendered["intro"].text)

Expected output:

(Doe, 2024)

Library owns normalized entries. Document stores the library, style, and locale inputs. Each render call receives the complete ordered citation document and returns named citations with their cited bibliography.

Choose A Model

Every Rendered value exposes text, rendered HTML, and a structured tree. TidyOptions configures canonical BibTeX formatting and duplicate handling.

Use from code-mode agents

Installing refkit also installs its Agent Plugin and version-matched Agent Skill. Any code-mode agent that can execute Python can import refkit.agent and inspect the workflow for the installed API:

import refkit.agent as refkit_agent

help(refkit_agent)

For programmatic access, instructions() returns the packaged skill as Markdown and resources() returns its known files by skill-relative name:

instructions = refkit_agent.instructions()
resources = refkit_agent.resources()
workflow = resources["references/workflows.md"].read_text()

The agent workflow uses the same Library, Document, BibDocument, and tidy APIs as other Python callers. Any code-mode environment that can execute Python can use these imports directly. Clients that understand Agent Plugin metadata can also discover the packaged resources.

Marimo code mode also discovers refkit.agent automatically through the capability entry point installed with the wheel. Marimo currently exposes discovery through its internal preview code-mode module. The agent integration guide records both the general Python path and marimo discovery.

Documentation

• Get started
• Python API
• Raw BibTeX editing
• Tidy options
• Pyodide

RefKit is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.