Rimagination/scansci-pdf is an agent-oriented tool that finds and downloads academic papers from sources such as open-access repositories, preprint services, publishers, and institutional access routes. It accepts identifiers or literature lists, saves papers as named PDF files, and can also export citations or convert PDFs to Markdown. Its MCP server and agent plugins let coding agents use these paper-retrieval workflows.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to Rimagination/scansci-pdf. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Rimagination/scansci-pdf/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Rimagination/scansci-pdfWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/rimagination/scansci-pdf/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/rimagination/scansci-pdf/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/rimagination/scansci-pdf/agents-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/rimagination/scansci-pdf/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/rimagination/scansci-pdf/agents-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00588 | $0.00588 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00235 | $0.00235 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00118 | $0.00118 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00059 | $0.00059 |
Grade A, and why
scansci-pdf AGENTS.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 57 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
AGENTS.md
ScanSci PDF is an MCP server plus agent skills for academic literature search, citation export, and authorized paper retrieval. This file is the entry point for coding agents working in this repository; host-specific adapters live in the directories listed below.
What runs
- Python package
scansci-pdf(src/scansci_pdf), Python 3.11+. - CLI entry point:
scansci-pdf(scansci-pdf runstarts the stdio MCP server;scansci-pdf run --mode streamable_httpserves HTTP). - 18 MCP tools named
scansci_pdf_*; see.mcp.jsonfor the standard client configuration.
Install for development
python -m pip install -e .
# Optional: institutional browsers / WebVPN crypto
python -m pip install -e ".[cloakbrowser,vpnsci]"
scansci-pdf check
Host adapters
| Host | Files |
|---|---|
| Standard MCP clients | .mcp.json (scansci-pdf run, stdio) |
| Claude Code | .claude/skills/ + the standard MCP configuration |
| Codex App | .codex-plugin/plugin.json, .mcp.json, skills/ |
| ZCode | zcode-plugin/ (marketplace package, skills, /scansci commands) |
| DeepSeek Harness | dsh-plugin/ (npm: scansci-pdf; bundle: MCP client row + runtime skill registration) |
Skills
skill/SKILL.md— canonical, full workflow reference forscansci-pdf.skills/scansci-pdf/SKILL.md— short host-neutral wrapper.skills/scansci-sort/SKILL.md— list triage and route planning.skills/dsh-npm/SKILL.md— DSH bundle adaptation and npm publishing playbook.zcode-plugin/skills/— expanded ZCode editions.
Keep the MCP tool names and the source-authorization rules in these skills in sync with the implementation.
Guardrails
- Preserve the user's requested download strategy and report the actual source of every download.
- Never re-enable gray sources when the user chose
legal_onlyorscihub_enabled=false; scheduling must not expand authorization. - Institutional login happens only in the browser opened by
scansci_pdf_login; cookies come from that context, and the egress IP is what the publisher sees. - Treat API keys, cookies, proxy credentials, and institution details as secrets.
- Read
docs/PLAYBOOK.mdbefore changing anti-bot, mirror, or sniffing code.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 2d ago Changed · +1 lines · +23 tokens per session 5a97f7c33ff6
- 3d ago First seen · 56 lines · 565 tokens per session scan A 1433bf1decc5
scansci-pdf AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository Rimagination/scansci-pdf (1,153 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 588 tokens to every session, about $0.0024 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-10-22.
Other instructions, from other repositories
vscode buildNext.instructions.md
Working notes and architecture documentation for the new esbuild-based build system in build/next. Use when making changes to the new build pipeline (transpile/bundle commands, NLS plugin, source-map handling, resource copying, or self-hosting watch tasks).
next.js AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for vercel/next.js, covering next.js development guide, codebase structure, monorepo overview, core package: packages/next and other important packages.
vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.md
Instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code oss third-party-notices pipeline, architecture, pipeline flow in ci, cache eligibility and rollout and applying the notice (cutover).
langchain AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for langchain-ai/langchain, covering global development guidelines for the langchain monorepo, corridor security analysis, project architecture and context, monorepo structure and development tools & commands.
vscode copilot-instructions.md
Copilot instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code copilot instructions, project overview, root folders, core architecture (src/ folder) and built-in extensions (extensions/ folder).
deepseek-harness AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness, covering agents.md, pre-stable apis and released session data, repository layout, commands and host sandbox failures.