Aminer Free Academic

AMiner Free Search

Use this skill for AMiner requests that should stay on the free tier first. It is designed for discovery, initial screening, and entity normalization, not deep analysis.

Scope

This skill uses only the upgraded free interfaces:

• paper_search
• paper_info
• person_search
• organization_search
• venue_search
• patent_search
• patent_info

Current free-tier fields emphasized by this skill:

• paper_search: one search box query over title + keywords, optional year / year_from / year_to; returns doi, venue_name, first_author, n_citation_bucket, year
• paper_info: abstract_slice, year, venue_id, author_count
• organization_search: aliases (top 3)
• venue_search: aliases (top 3), venue_type
• patent_search: inventor_name (first), app_year, pub_year
• patent_info: app_year, pub_year
• person_search: interests, n_citation, institution fields

Primary Goal

Use free APIs to help the user answer:

• What is this entity?
• Is it relevant enough to continue?
• Which candidate should I inspect next?
• Can I normalize this institution or venue name?
• Is there enough value to justify upgrading to paid APIs?

Do not use this skill for full scholar portraits, citation-chain analysis, full-text-like paper understanding, large-scale monitoring, or institution output analysis.

Mandatory Rules

1. Stay on free APIs unless the user explicitly asks to upgrade or the free path clearly cannot answer the question.
2. Be explicit about free-tier limits. Say what can be answered now and what would require a paid upgrade.
3. Use free results to narrow candidates before suggesting any paid API.
4. If returning entities, append AMiner URLs when IDs are available:
   • Paper: https://www.aminer.cn/pub/{paper_id}
   • Scholar: https://www.aminer.cn/profile/{scholar_id}
   • Patent: https://www.aminer.cn/patent/{patent_id}
   • Venue: https://www.aminer.cn/open/journal/detail/{venue_id}

Token Check (Required)

Before making any API call, verify that the environment variable AMINER_API_KEY exists. Never output the token in plain text.

bashCopy code
if [ -z "${AMINER_API_KEY+x}" ]; then
    echo "AMINER_API_KEY does not exist"
else
    echo "AMINER_API_KEY exists"
fi

• If ${AMINER_API_KEY} exists: proceed with the query.
• If ${AMINER_API_KEY} is not set: stop immediately and guide the user to the AMiner Console to generate one. For help, see the Open Platform Documentation.
• If the user provides AMINER_API_KEY inline (e.g. "My token is xxx"), accept it for the current session, but recommend setting it as an environment variable for better security.

Invocation Style

Use direct curl calls by default. A Python wrapper is not required for this skill.

Default headers:

• Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY} by default
• Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8 for POST requests
• X-Platform (current host: claude-code / cursor / codex / openclaw; unknown if it cannot be determined)
• X-Skill-Name: aminer-free-academic and X-Skill-Version (this file's frontmatter version) on every call

When To Use

Use this skill when the user asks for:

• free AMiner search
• low-cost academic discovery
• paper screening
• scholar identification
• institution normalization
• venue normalization
• patent trend scanning
• representative results before deeper analysis

Trigger phrases include:

• “先用免费接口”
• “不要走收费接口”
• “先帮我筛一下”
• “先看看值不值得深挖”
• “找几个候选”
• “做一个轻量版 skill”

Free Workflows

1. Paper triage

Use when the user wants to quickly judge whether a paper is relevant.

Default chain:

paper_search -> paper_info

paper_search is not title-only lookup. Its single query box matches title and keywords together, so a topic phrase (retrieval augmented generation), a known title, or a short question all return on-topic hits for free, and year_from / year_to narrows to a time window. Its real limits: size ≤ 20, at most 10 pages, no per-field condition (author / institution / venue / abstract) and no sort. Needing one of those is when it becomes an aminer-academic-search job (paper_search_pro, ¥0.01).

Return:

• title
• first author
• venue name
• year
• citation bucket
• abstract slice
• paper URL

This can answer:

• Is this probably the right paper?
• Is it recent?
• Is it from a recognizable venue?
• Is it worth opening in detail?

2. Scholar identification

Use when the user wants to know which scholar is the right person.

Default chain:

person_search

Return:

• name
• org
• interests
• citation count
• scholar URL

This can answer:

• Is this the right scholar?
• What interests best describe this person?
• Which institution candidate is the best match?

3. Institution normalization

Use when the user provides an institution string or abbreviation.

Default chain:

organization_search

Return:

• org id
• standard name
• aliases (top 3)

This can answer:

• Is this institution name recognized?
• Which canonical organization should downstream workflows use?

4. Venue normalization and type check

Use when the user provides a conference or journal name.

Default chain:

venue_search

Return:

• venue id
• standard bilingual name
• aliases (top 3)
• venue type
• venue URL

This can answer:

• Is this a conference or a journal?
• What is the standard venue entity?

5. Patent trend scan

Use when the user wants a lightweight view of patents in a topic.

Default chain:

patent_search -> patent_info when IDs need basic enrichment

Return:

• patent title
• first inventor
• app year
• pub year
• patent number and country when patent_info is added
• patent URL

This can answer:

• Is the topic active recently?
• Who appears first in the inventor field?
• Is there recent patent activity worth deeper review?

6. Free entity map

Use when the user wants a quick map of a topic across papers, scholars, venues, institutions, and patents without paying for analysis-grade APIs.

Suggested chain:

• papers: paper_search -> paper_info
• scholars: person_search
• institutions: organization_search
• venues: venue_search
• patents: patent_search -> patent_info

Return a short cross-entity summary, not a deep report.

Free Skill Examples

1. Paper triage

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curl -X GET \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/paper/search?page=1&size=5&query=Attention%20Is%20All%20You%20Need' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: claude-code' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Name: aminer-free-academic' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Version: 1.3.0'

Then enrich with paper_info:

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curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/paper/info' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: claude-code' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Name: aminer-free-academic' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Version: 1.3.0' \
  -d '{"ids":["<PAPER_ID>"]}'

2. Scholar identification

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curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/person/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: claude-code' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Name: aminer-free-academic' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Version: 1.3.0' \
  -d '{"name":"Yann LeCun","size":5}'

3. Institution normalization

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curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/organization/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: claude-code' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Name: aminer-free-academic' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Version: 1.3.0' \
  -d '{"orgs":["MIT CSAIL"]}'

4. Venue normalization and type check

bashCopy code
curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/venue/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: claude-code' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Name: aminer-free-academic' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Version: 1.3.0' \
  -d '{"name":"tkde"}'

5. Patent trend scan

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curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/patent/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: claude-code' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Name: aminer-free-academic' \
  -H 'X-Skill-Version: 1.3.0' \
  -d '{"query":"quantum computing chip","page":0,"size":10}'

Output Pattern

Prefer this structure:

markdownCopy code
## Free-tier result

### What we can answer now
- ...

### Top candidates
- ...

### Suggested next step
- Stay free: ...
- Upgrade to paid API only if you need: ...

Paid Upgrade Boundary

Recommend upgrading only when the user needs one of these:

• full abstract or full paper metadata
• per-field paper search (author / institution / venue / abstract), sorting, or more than 20 results per page
• semantic understanding of complex research questions
• citation relationships
• full scholar profile, works, patents, or projects
• institution scholars, papers, patents, or rich profiles
• venue paper lists by year
• full patent details such as IPC/CPC, assignee, description

Suggested paid handoff:

• deeper paper analysis: paper_search_pro, paper_detail, paper_relation
• deeper scholar analysis: person/detail, person/figure, person/paper/relation
• deeper org analysis: organization/detail, organization/person/relation, organization/paper/relation
• deeper venue analysis: venue/detail, venue/paper/relation
• deeper patent analysis: patent/detail

Product Positioning

This skill is intentionally positioned for:

• first success
• free discovery
• candidate narrowing
• entity normalization
• upgrade qualification

It should not replace the paid skill. It should create demand for it.

Additional Reference

For endpoint parameters and fields, read references/api-catalog.md.