validate-references

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Check BibTeX entries for completeness, DOI resolution, and broken links. Verify required fields per entry type (article, book, inproceedings), resolve and validate DOIs via the CrossRef API, check URL accessibility, and flag duplicate entries, missing abstracts, and inconsistent formatting. Use when preparing a manuscript bibliography for journal submission, auditing a shared .bib file before a project milestone, after merging bibliographies from multiple sources, when citations render incorrectly, or as a CI check on version-controlled .bib files.

pjt222 By pjt222 schedule Updated 5/3/2026
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name: validate-references locale: caveman-ultra source_locale: en source_commit: 82c77053 translator: "Julius Brussee homage — caveman" translation_date: "2026-05-03" description: > Check BibTeX entries for completeness, DOI resolution, and broken links. Verify required fields per entry type (article, book, inproceedings), resolve and validate DOIs via the CrossRef API, check URL accessibility, and flag duplicate entries, missing abstracts, and inconsistent formatting. Use when preparing a manuscript bibliography for journal submission, auditing a shared .bib file before a project milestone, after merging bibliographies from multiple sources, when citations render incorrectly, or as a CI check on version-controlled .bib files. license: MIT allowed-tools: Read Write Edit Bash Grep Glob metadata: author: Philipp Thoss version: "1.0" domain: citations complexity: intermediate language: R tags: citations, validation, doi, bibtex, quality

Validate References

Check BibTeX entries for completeness, accuracy, consistency. Covers required fields per entry type, DOI resolution via CrossRef, URL access, dup detection, structured report by severity. Ensures .bib publication-ready before render.

Use When

  • Manuscript bib for journal submission
  • Audit shared .bib before project milestone
  • After merging bibs from multi sources
  • Citations render incorrectly → diagnose .bib issues
  • CI check on .bib in version-controlled

In

  • Required: Path to .bib
  • Optional: Validation level (basic, standard, strict; default: standard)
  • Optional: DOI resolution online check (default: TRUE)
  • Optional: URL access check (default: TRUE)
  • Optional: Out report path (default: console)
  • Optional: CrossRef email for polite pool (recommended for large)

Do

Step 1: Install + Load Pkgs

required_packages <- c("RefManageR", "httr2", "curl")
missing <- required_packages[!vapply(required_packages, requireNamespace,
                                     logical(1), quietly = TRUE)]
if (length(missing) > 0) install.packages(missing)

library(RefManageR)

Got: All pkgs load no errs.

If err: httr2 unavail → install.packages("httr2"). No curl headers → sudo apt install libcurl4-openssl-dev.

Step 2: Parse + Inventory

bib <- RefManageR::ReadBib("references.bib", check = FALSE)
message(sprintf("Loaded %d entries from references.bib", length(bib)))

# Inventory entry types
entry_types <- vapply(bib, function(x) tolower(attr(x, "bibtype")), character(1))
type_counts <- sort(table(entry_types), decreasing = TRUE)
message("Entry types:")
for (type in names(type_counts)) {
  message(sprintf("  %s: %d", type, type_counts[[type]]))
}

Got: Summary entry types (article, book, inproceedings, etc.) + total count matching @type{ blocks.

If err: Parsing errs → malformed BibTeX. Check unmatched braces, missing commas between fields, invalid UTF-8.

Step 3: Validate Required Fields

# BibTeX required fields by entry type
required_fields <- list(
  article       = c("author", "title", "journal", "year"),
  book          = c("author", "title", "publisher", "year"),
  inproceedings = c("author", "title", "booktitle", "year"),
  incollection  = c("author", "title", "booktitle", "publisher", "year"),
  phdthesis     = c("author", "title", "school", "year"),
  mastersthesis = c("author", "title", "school", "year"),
  techreport    = c("author", "title", "institution", "year"),
  misc          = c("author", "title", "year"),
  unpublished   = c("author", "title", "note")
)

validate_fields <- function(bib) {
  issues <- list()
  for (i in seq_along(bib)) {
    key <- names(bib)[i]
    entry_type <- tolower(attr(bib[[i]], "bibtype"))
    req <- required_fields[[entry_type]]
    if (is.null(req)) {
      issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <- list(
        key = key, severity = "warning",
        message = sprintf("Unknown entry type: %s", entry_type)
      )
      next
    }
    for (field in req) {
      value <- bib[[i]][[field]]
      if (is.null(value) || !nzchar(trimws(as.character(value)))) {
        issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <- list(
          key = key, severity = "error",
          message = sprintf("Missing required field: %s (type: %s)", field, entry_type)
        )
      }
    }
  }
  issues
}

field_issues <- validate_fields(bib)
message(sprintf("Field validation: %d issues found", length(field_issues)))

Got: List of issues where required missing. Zero for well-maintained.

If err: Runs locally, no fail expected. If fails → check .bib parsed in Step 2.

Step 4: Resolve + Validate DOIs

validate_dois <- function(bib, email = NULL) {
  issues <- list()

  # Set polite API headers
  headers <- list(`User-Agent` = "R-bibliography-validator/1.0")
  if (!is.null(email)) {
    headers[["mailto"]] <- email
  }

  for (i in seq_along(bib)) {
    key <- names(bib)[i]
    doi <- bib[[i]]$doi
    if (is.null(doi) || !nzchar(doi)) {
      issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <- list(
        key = key, severity = "info",
        message = "No DOI present"
      )
      next
    }

    # Normalize DOI
    doi <- gsub("^https?://doi\\.org/", "", doi)
    doi <- gsub("^doi:", "", doi, ignore.case = TRUE)
    doi <- trimws(doi)

    # Resolve via CrossRef
    tryCatch({
      resp <- httr2::request(sprintf("https://api.crossref.org/works/%s", doi)) |>
        httr2::req_headers(!!!headers) |>
        httr2::req_timeout(10) |>
        httr2::req_perform()

      if (httr2::resp_status(resp) != 200) {
        issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <- list(
          key = key, severity = "error",
          message = sprintf("DOI does not resolve: %s (HTTP %d)", doi,
                            httr2::resp_status(resp))
        )
      }
    }, error = function(e) {
      issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <<- list(
        key = key, severity = "warning",
        message = sprintf("DOI check failed for %s: %s", doi, e$message)
      )
    })

    Sys.sleep(0.5)  # Rate limiting
  }
  issues
}

# Only run online checks if requested
doi_issues <- validate_dois(bib, email = "your.email@example.com")
message(sprintf("DOI validation: %d issues found", length(doi_issues)))

Got: Each DOI resolves (HTTP 200 from CrossRef). No-DOI entries flagged informational.

If err: Net errs|rate limiting → warnings not hard fails. Set email for higher rate limits via CrossRef polite pool.

Step 5: URL Access

validate_urls <- function(bib) {
  issues <- list()

  for (i in seq_along(bib)) {
    key <- names(bib)[i]
    url <- bib[[i]]$url

    if (is.null(url) || !nzchar(url)) next

    tryCatch({
      resp <- httr2::request(url) |>
        httr2::req_method("HEAD") |>
        httr2::req_timeout(10) |>
        httr2::req_error(is_error = function(resp) FALSE) |>
        httr2::req_perform()

      status <- httr2::resp_status(resp)
      if (status >= 400) {
        issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <- list(
          key = key, severity = "warning",
          message = sprintf("URL returned HTTP %d: %s", status, url)
        )
      }
    }, error = function(e) {
      issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <<- list(
        key = key, severity = "warning",
        message = sprintf("URL unreachable: %s (%s)", url, e$message)
      )
    })

    Sys.sleep(0.3)
  }
  issues
}

url_issues <- validate_urls(bib)
message(sprintf("URL validation: %d issues found", length(url_issues)))

Got: All URLs HTTP 200 (or 301/302 redirects). Broken links flagged.

If err: Some servers block HEAD → retry GET for failed HEAD checks. Timeouts common for slow academic servers.

Step 6: Detect Dups

detect_duplicates <- function(bib) {
  issues <- list()

  # Check for duplicate DOIs
  dois <- vapply(bib, function(x) {
    d <- x$doi
    if (is.null(d)) NA_character_ else tolower(trimws(d))
  }, character(1))

  doi_table <- table(dois[!is.na(dois)])
  dup_dois <- names(doi_table[doi_table > 1])
  for (d in dup_dois) {
    keys <- names(bib)[which(dois == d)]
    issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <- list(
      key = paste(keys, collapse = ", "), severity = "error",
      message = sprintf("Duplicate DOI %s in entries: %s", d,
                        paste(keys, collapse = ", "))
    )
  }

  # Check for duplicate titles (fuzzy)
  titles <- vapply(bib, function(x) {
    t <- x$title
    if (is.null(t)) NA_character_ else tolower(gsub("[^a-z0-9 ]", "", tolower(t)))
  }, character(1))

  seen <- character(0)
  for (i in seq_along(titles)) {
    if (is.na(titles[i])) next
    for (j in seen) {
      if (identical(titles[i], titles[as.integer(j)])) {
        issues[[length(issues) + 1]] <- list(
          key = sprintf("%s, %s", names(bib)[as.integer(j)], names(bib)[i]),
          severity = "warning",
          message = sprintf("Possible duplicate titles: '%s'",
                            substr(bib[[i]]$title, 1, 60))
        )
      }
    }
    seen <- c(seen, as.character(i))
  }

  issues
}

dup_issues <- detect_duplicates(bib)
message(sprintf("Duplicate detection: %d issues found", length(dup_issues)))

Got: Zero dups for clean. Detected dups flagged w/ specific keys.

Step 7: Generate Report

generate_report <- function(all_issues, bib, output_file = NULL) {
  errors   <- Filter(function(x) x$severity == "error", all_issues)
  warnings <- Filter(function(x) x$severity == "warning", all_issues)
  infos    <- Filter(function(x) x$severity == "info", all_issues)

  lines <- c(
    "# Bibliography Validation Report",
    "",
    sprintf("**File**: references.bib"),
    sprintf("**Entries**: %d", length(bib)),
    sprintf("**Date**: %s", Sys.Date()),
    "",
    sprintf("## Summary: %d errors, %d warnings, %d info",
            length(errors), length(warnings), length(infos)),
    ""
  )

  if (length(errors) > 0) {
    lines <- c(lines, "## Errors", "")
    for (issue in errors) {
      lines <- c(lines, sprintf("- **[%s]** %s", issue$key, issue$message))
    }
    lines <- c(lines, "")
  }

  if (length(warnings) > 0) {
    lines <- c(lines, "## Warnings", "")
    for (issue in warnings) {
      lines <- c(lines, sprintf("- **[%s]** %s", issue$key, issue$message))
    }
    lines <- c(lines, "")
  }

  report_text <- paste(lines, collapse = "\n")

  if (!is.null(output_file)) {
    writeLines(report_text, output_file)
    message(sprintf("Report written to %s", output_file))
  }

  cat(report_text)
  invisible(all_issues)
}

all_issues <- c(field_issues, doi_issues, url_issues, dup_issues)
generate_report(all_issues, bib, output_file = "validation-report.md")

Got: Structured md report listing all issues grouped by severity.

Check

  • All entries have required fields per type (no field-check errs)
  • All DOIs resolve to valid CrossRef records
  • No dup DOIs in bib
  • All URLs accessible (HTTP 200 or redirect)
  • Validation report generated no R errs
  • Zero errs in report for publication-ready bib

Traps

  • DOI format inconsistency: DOIs may appear as 10.1234/..., https://doi.org/10.1234/..., or doi:10.1234/.... Normalize before compare
  • CrossRef rate limit: Unauth req limited to ~50/sec. Always use email to join polite pool for higher
  • Transient URL fails: Academic servers occasionally timeout. Retry once before flagging
  • Entry type variations: BibLaTeX uses @online where BibTeX uses @misc. Validator should handle both
  • False positive dups: "Introduction"|"Methods" titles trigger fuzzy match. Review flagged manually
  • Missing DOIs for older works: Pre-2000 often lack DOIs. Flag informational, not errs

→

  • manage-bibliography — fix issues found by validator (dedup, add fields)
  • format-citations — format validated entries into styled citations
  • ../reporting/format-apa-report — APA needs complete validated refs
  • ../r-packages/write-vignette — vignettes w/ citations need valid .bib entries
Install via CLI
npx skills add https://github.com/pjt222/agent-almanac --skill validate-references
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