reference-verifier

reference-verifier is a skill for Claude Code from muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills. It costs 0 tokens per session (2,698 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A tool for checking academic references, including citation details, DOIs, authors, publication information, and retraction status. A DOI is a permanent identifier used to locate a published work.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to verify reference lists, find citation problems, detect phantom or orphan references, and check whether cited papers were retracted.
Why use it?
It helps catch incorrect, fabricated, missing, unused, or retracted references before a paper is submitted.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the academic-writer plugin — 27 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to verify reference lists, find citation problems, detect phantom or orphan references, and check whether cited papers were retracted.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills/reference-verifier
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills --skill reference-verifier
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install academic-writer, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 27 skills.

Wrote 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.

agentmods badge for reference-verifier

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills/reference-verifier/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills/reference-verifier)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills/reference-verifier"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills/reference-verifier/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for reference-verifier

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills/reference-verifier"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills/reference-verifier.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,698 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00000 $0.02698
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.01349
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00540
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00270

Measured 10d ago against content hash 24bc4fdc7b01, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

reference-verifier 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 10d 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.

skills/reference-verifier/SKILL.md · 255 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 255 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Reference Verifier

Citation verification is a mandatory step before submission. Errors in reference lists undermine credibility and can delay publication. The rise of AI-generated text has introduced a new category of fabricated citations that appear plausible but are entirely non-existent.


Why Reference Verification Is Critical

Accuracy: A single wrong page number, volume, or year signals carelessness to reviewers. Systematic errors suggest fabrication.

Retraction risk: Citing a retracted paper without noting the retraction can constitute a serious integrity breach. Thousands of papers are retracted annually.

AI hallucination: Large language models regularly generate plausible-sounding but entirely fictional citations — correct author names, realistic journal names, plausible years, and fabricated DOIs. These require verification before use.

Orphan and phantom references: Orphan = cited in text but missing from the reference list. Phantom = in the reference list but never cited in the text. Both are submission errors.

Self-citation ethics: Excessive self-citation is flagged by editors. Cite your own work only when directly relevant, not routinely.


Reference Error Types

Error Type Description How to Detect How to Fix
AI hallucination Entirely fabricated citation that does not exist Search DOI + title in CrossRef/Google Scholar Remove; find a real source or remove the claim
Wrong DOI Doi resolves to a different paper Resolve doi.org/[DOI] in browser Locate correct DOI via CrossRef
Wrong page range Listed pages differ from published article Check via DOI or journal website Correct from journal website
Wrong year Publication year incorrect CrossRef lookup Correct from official source
Wrong volume/issue Volume or issue number wrong Journal website or DOI Correct from official source
Retracted paper Paper has been retracted post-publication RetractionWatch; PubMed retraction notices Remove or replace; if citing, note retraction
Author name error First/last name swapped; misspelled CrossRef or PubMed lookup Correct to match published version
Missing DOI DOI not included (increasingly required) CrossRef.org lookup Add DOI
Orphan citation Cited in text, absent from reference list Cross-check text citations vs. list Add full reference
Phantom reference In reference list, not cited in text Cross-check list vs. text citations Remove or add in-text citation
Non-existent journal Journal name does not exist Google the journal Flag as likely hallucination; verify source

Read the full file on GitHub · 255 lines

Changes

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.

  1. 10d ago First seen · 255 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 24bc4fdc7b01

Subscribe to this mod's changes

reference-verifier is a skill published in the GitHub repository muhammad1438/academic-writer-skills (6 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 2,698 tokens. 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 2026-08-31.

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