scidock 0.1.1

CLI interface for finding, downloading and managing scientific articles

SciDock

SciDock is a CLI tool designed to provide a user-friendly interface for finding, downloading and managing scientific articles of your interest!

Installation

The most preferred installation method is via pipx, which enhances all of the benefits of the CLI application while running in an isolated environment.

pipx install scidock

If you don't want to install pipx, you can just run:

pip install scidock

Note: you must have Python 3.12+ installed!

If you want to install the application manually or plan to contribute to the project, consider the "development installation" option (see next section). Otherwise, skip it without a second thought.

Development installation

After installing Poetry on your system, run these commands:

git clone https://github.com/kgleba/scidock.git
cd scidock
poetry shell
poetry install

Usage

To initialize a repository (and set it as a default), run:

scidock init /path/to/repository

To perform a search, execute:

scidock search 'query'

Note that the reason we do not explicitly ask you to provide author name/title/abstract/etc. but rather provide a free-form query is that all of this work is done in the background by Natural Language Processing models.

You can also use the --extend option to expand the search field (e.g., to search through abstracts). By default it is disabled, and search with free-form query is limited to titles.

The dividing line in the search engine results deserves special attention. Behind it are the works that most closely match the query and, as we think, will be most useful to you.

To try and download the paper with a known DOI, execute:

scidock download 'DOI'

To set up a proxy (see the "Supported Resources" section for use cases), use scidock config:

scidock config proxy PROXY_TYPE IP PORT

where PROXY_TYPE is either http or socks5 (depending on the type of proxy you are using).

For example:

scidock config proxy socks5 127.0.0.1 1080

You can now force other commands (like search and download) to make the appropriate network requests through the proxy by passing the --proxy flag

To open locally stored PDFs in your standard viewer, run with free-form request:

scidock open 'query'

Planning to introduce new features soon: e.g. to cite any of the papers stored in the local database.

Aesthetically pleasing demos will also appear here soon :D

Supported resources

✔️ CrossRef (for searching through an enormous database with extensive metadata for each entry)

✔️ arXiv (for searching and downloading freely published preprints)

✔️ Sci-Hub (for downloading paywalled PDFs by given DOI; might require a proxy though)

✔️ Some resources that are known to publish works with open access: IEEE, IntechOpen and MDPI

❌ Google Scholar (yet)

❌ CyberLeninka (for queries in Russian)

❌ GeneralIndex

❌ Anna's Archive

Limitations

• Proxies do not support authentication
• Performance still requires attention
• Some parts of the system are still poorly configurable or not configurable at all

Don't hesitate to open issues as the project is still in beta testing!