zaoqu-liu/scienceclaw/asta-corpus-search

Name: asta-corpus-search
Author: zaoqu-liu

Claude Code and agent skill by zaoqu-liu/scienceclaw

Trust tier 3

community

Source check pending

Checking that the SKILL.md file is still in the repository.

Search Allen AI's Asta Scientific Corpus (225M+ papers, 12M+ full-text, 2.4B+ citations) via MCP endpoint. Provides paragraph-level semantic search across full-text publications, citation graph traversal, and author analysis. Use as a complement to PubMed/OpenAlex/Semantic Scholar for deeper literature discovery, especially when full-text search or citation network analysis is needed. Requires ASTA_API_KEY in .env (free registration at allenai.org/asta).

Install

npx vskill@latest install zaoqu-liu/scienceclaw/asta-corpus-search

SKILL.md

Asta Scientific Corpus Search

Access Allen AI's massive scientific literature graph: 225M+ papers, 80M+ authors, 2.4B+ citation edges, and 12M+ full-text publications (285M+ passages).

When to Use

Always as part of multi-source literature search (Channel 4 alongside PubMed, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar)
Especially useful when you need:
Full-text paragraph-level search (not just title/abstract)
Deep citation network traversal
Cross-disciplinary paper discovery
Author relationship analysis

API Configuration

Parameter	Value
Endpoint	`https://asta-tools.allen.ai/mcp/v1`
Protocol	MCP over HTTP POST (JSON-RPC style)
Auth	`x-api-key: $ASTA_API_KEY` header
Rate limits	Higher with API key; basic access without
Key registration	Free at https://allenai.org/asta/resources

Core Tools

1. search_papers — Find papers by query

bash

curl -s "https://asta-tools.allen.ai/mcp/v1" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ASTA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "tools/call",
    "id": 1,
    "params": {
      "name": "search_papers",
      "arguments": {
        "query": "THBS2 tumor microenvironment macrophage",
        "limit": 15
      }
    }
  }'

Returns: paper IDs, titles, authors, year, citation count, abstract snippets.

2. get_papers — Retrieve paper details by ID

Supports multiple ID types: DOI, arXiv ID, PMID, Semantic Scholar CorpusId.

bash

curl -s "https://asta-tools.allen.ai/mcp/v1" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ASTA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "tools/call",
    "id": 1,
    "params": {
      "name": "get_papers",
      "arguments": {
        "paper_ids": ["PMID:32273438", "DOI:10.1038/s41586-024-07487-w"],
        "fields": ["title", "authors", "year", "abstract", "citationCount", "references"]
      }
    }
  }'

3. get_citations — Citation graph traversal

bash

curl -s "https://asta-tools.allen.ai/mcp/v1" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ASTA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "tools/call",
    "id": 1,
    "params": {
      "name": "get_citations",
      "arguments": {
        "paper_id": "PMID:32273438",
        "direction": "citations",
        "limit": 20
      }
    }
  }'

Use "direction": "references" for backward citations.

Integration with Multi-Source Search

Add Asta as the fourth channel in the standard literature search block:

bash

echo "=== PubMed ===" && \
curl -s "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&retmode=json&retmax=20&sort=relevance&term=QUERY" && \
echo -e "\n=== OpenAlex ===" && \
curl -s "https://api.openalex.org/works?search=QUERY&per_page=10&sort=relevance_score:desc&select=id,title,authorships,publication_year,cited_by_count,doi,primary_location" && \
echo -e "\n=== Semantic Scholar ===" && \
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search?query=QUERY&limit=10&fields=title,authors,year,abstract,citationCount,externalIds,url" && \
echo -e "\n=== Asta (225M papers, full-text index) ===" && \
curl -s "https://asta-tools.allen.ai/mcp/v1" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ASTA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"tools/call","id":1,"params":{"name":"search_papers","arguments":{"query":"QUERY","limit":15}}}'

When Asta Adds Unique Value

Scenario	Why Asta helps
Full-text keyword search	PubMed only searches title/abstract; Asta indexes 285M+ passages from 12M full-text papers
Finding methods/protocols	Search for specific techniques mentioned only in methods sections
Citation network depth	2.4B+ citation edges enable deep forward/backward chain analysis
Cross-disciplinary discovery	225M papers across all fields, not limited to biomedical
Preprint coverage	Includes arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv alongside published papers

Fallback Behavior

If ASTA_API_KEY is not configured or the API returns an error:

Skip Asta silently
Continue with PubMed + OpenAlex + Semantic Scholar
Do NOT report the failure to the user unless they explicitly asked for Asta results

Response Parsing

Asta MCP responses follow JSON-RPC format:

json

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": {
    "content": [
      {
        "type": "text",
        "text": "... JSON string with paper results ..."
      }
    ]
  }
}

Parse result.content[0].text as JSON to extract paper data. Handle nested JSON strings.

Security

Security scanPassed, 95 of 100Pattern checks on the skill's files.
Model reviewPassed

See the full security report

Quality evaluation

Task evaluationNot runNo evaluation yet. Run one in Skill Studio.

See evaluation results

Source

SKILL.md in the repositoryCheckingskills/asta-corpus-search/SKILL.md

Popularity

Repository stars: 39
Repository forks: 7
7-day trend score: 18

Stars and forks are for the whole GitHub repository, not this skill alone. Refreshed 25 Mar 2026, 7 months ago.

Works with

Any agent vskill installs to: 56 targets in all. These 39 have a page on this site.

Claude Code
Cursor
GitHub Copilot
Windsurf
Codex
Gemini CLI
Cline
Amp
Roo Code
Goose
Continue
Kilo Code
Junie
Trae
OpenHands
Qwen Code
AI Agent
Tabnine Chat
Sourcegraph Cody
Amazon Q
Firebase Genkit
Sweep
Devin
Phind
Mentat
Claude Desktop
Aider
GPT Pilot
Plandex
bolt.new
v0
Replit Agent
Anse
TypingMind
BetterChatGPT
LibreChat
Warp AI
Pieces
Fig AI

Embed badge

[![vskill VERIFIED](https://verified-skill.com/api/v1/skills/zaoqu-liu/scienceclaw/asta-corpus-search/badge)](https://verified-skill.com/skills/zaoqu-liu/scienceclaw/asta-corpus-search)

Something wrong with this skill or its page? Tell us.