updateCitation 0.1.1

Automatically update citation files (CITATION.cff) in a GitHub repository from `pyproject.toml`, GitHub releases, and PyPI releases.

updateCitation

updateCitation is a Python tool that automates the maintenance of citation metadata in software projects. It helps researchers and developers ensure their work is properly citeable while maintaining consistent metadata across different platforms.

Key Features

• Automatic generation and updates of CITATION.cff files
• Seamless integration with Python package metadata from pyproject.toml
• Synchronization with GitHub release information
• Integration with PyPI package metadata
• Validation of citation metadata format
• GitHub Actions support for automated updates

Installation

pip install updateCitation

Usage

The simplest way to use updateCitation is to run it from your repository root:

import updateCitation
updateCitation.here()

For custom pyproject.toml locations:

updateCitation.here("path/to/pyproject.toml")

GitHub Actions Integration

updateCitation provides a GitHub Action that automatically updates your citation metadata on each push. To enable this:

1. Create .github/workflows/updateCitation.yml in your repository
2. Copy the provided workflow configuration
3. Commit and push to activate automated citation updates

Configuration

updateCitation primarily uses your project's pyproject.toml file for configuration. Essential fields include:

Required Fields

• name: Package name
• version: Current version
• authors: List of authors with names and emails

Recommended Fields

• description: Project description
• keywords: Search keywords
• license: License information
• urls: Project URLs (homepage, repository, etc.)

Optional Tool Settings

You can customize updateCitation's behavior in the [tool.updateCitation] section of pyproject.toml.

The most common configuration looks like this:

[tool.updateCitation]
filenameCitationDOTcff = "CITATION.cff"
pathFilenameCitationSSOT = "citations/CITATION.cff"
Z0Z_addGitHubRelease = true
Z0Z_addPyPIrelease = true
projectURLTargets = ["homepage", "license", "repository"]
gitCommitMessage = "Update citations [skip ci]"
gitUserName = "updateCitation"
# gitUserEmail = "[e-mail]"
# gitAmendFromGitHubAction = true

These are the current user-facing settings:

Setting	Type	Default	Purpose
filenameCitationDOTcff	string	"CITATION.cff"	Filename for the repository-root copy of the citation file.
pathFilenameCitationSSOT	string	same path as the repository-root CFF	Authoritative source-of-truth CFF file to read from and write to. Use this when your real source file lives somewhere like citations/CITATION.cff.
Z0Z_addGitHubRelease	boolean	true	Enable GitHub release lookup for commit, date-released, identifiers, and repository-code.
Z0Z_addPyPIrelease	boolean	true	Enable PyPI URL generation for repository-artifact. Set this to false for packages that are not published on PyPI.
projectURLTargets	array of strings	["homepage", "license", "repository"]	Choose which keys from [project.urls] should be copied into the CFF. The currently supported values are homepage, license, and repository.
gitCommitMessage	string	"Update citations [skip ci]"	Commit message used when updateCitation auto-commits from GitHub Actions.
gitUserName	string	"updateCitation"	Git username used for auto-commits from GitHub Actions.
gitUserEmail	string	empty string	Git email used for auto-commits. If omitted, updateCitation tries GitHub-derived noreply addresses first and then falls back to [e-mail].
gitAmendFromGitHubAction	boolean	true	If true, updateCitation will auto-commit and push the updated CFF after successful validation when running in GitHub Actions.

Advanced settings are also accepted because [tool.updateCitation] is loaded directly into SettingsPackage:

Setting	Type	Default	Notes
pathFilenameCitationDOTcffRepository	string	repository root CITATION.cff path	Full path for the repository-root copy of CITATION.cff. Usually you do not need this unless you want to override the full path explicitly.
pathRepository	string	current working directory	Advanced override for the repository root. In normal usage, updateCitation.here() already determines this from where you run it.
filename_pyprojectDOTtoml	string	"pyproject.toml"	Advanced override for the settings filename. This does not change how updateCitation.here() initially finds the file unless you pass a path directly to updateCitation.here(...).
pathReferences	string	citations/ under the repository root	Accepted by the settings object, but currently not used by the main workflow.
GITHUB_TOKEN	string or null	null	GitHub API token. If omitted, updateCitation falls back to the GITHUB_TOKEN or GH_TOKEN environment variables. Avoid committing secrets to pyproject.toml.

There are also two internal SettingsPackage fields that are not meant to be set in [tool.updateCitation]:

• pathFilenamePackageSSOT
  • Set internally from the pyproject.toml file being read.
• tomlPackageData
  • Populated internally from the [project] table.

Configuration notes and caveats

• Z0Z_addPyPIrelease = false prevents updateCitation from generating a new repository-artifact URL, but it does not automatically delete an existing repository-artifact already present in your source CFF.
• projectURLTargets only maps homepage, license, and repository today.
• Some path defaults are effectively precomputed. If you override an upstream path-related setting such as filenameCitationDOTcff or pathRepository, also override the dependent full path fields explicitly.
  • Example: if you change filenameCitationDOTcff, also set pathFilenameCitationDOTcffRepository.
  • Example: if you change pathRepository, also set any full path settings you rely on.

For example, a repository that keeps its authoritative CFF under citations/ and does not publish releases on PyPI can use:

[tool.updateCitation]
filenameCitationDOTcff = "CITATION.cff"
pathFilenameCitationSSOT = "citations/CITATION.cff"
Z0Z_addPyPIrelease = false

Documentation

For detailed documentation, examples, and best practices, visit our GitHub repository.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit pull requests.

Design goals

1. 100% Python.
2. Dynamic self-configuration whenever possible.
3. 100% of the updateCitation settings in pyproject.toml.
   1. No command line arguments.
   2. No environment variables.
   3. No separate configuration files.
4. All settings for external services, such as GitHub and PyPI, use the configuration from those services instead of creating new configuration for updateCitation.
5. Highly extensible for current and future services.

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