papers-cli

A CLI tool for searching, downloading, and managing academic papers from arXiv, J-STAGE, and IRDB (Institutional Repositories).

Features

• Single-source search with paging (arXiv, J-STAGE, IRDB)
• PDF download with SQLite metadata management
• Rich terminal UI via Spectre.Console (tables, panels, progress bars)
• --json output for scripting
• XDG Base Directory Specification compliant

Install

You can install precompiled binary from GitHub Release.

You can use mise to install and update easily.

mise use -g github:supermomonga/papers-cli@latest

Build from source

# Build
dotnet build

# Publish as a self-contained single binary
dotnet publish src/PapersCli.Cli -c Release -r linux-x64

Usage

Search

# Search the configured default source (arxiv by default)
papers-cli search "attention mechanism"

# Search a specific source
papers-cli search "深層学習" --source jstage
papers-cli search "transformer" --source arxiv --category cs.AI --from 2023

# Filter options
papers-cli search "reinforcement learning" --author "Yamada" --from 2020 --to 2024 --sort-key date --sort-order desc --limit 10

# Paging
papers-cli search "attention" --source arxiv --limit 10 --page 2

# JSON output includes result metadata and a results array
papers-cli search "attention" --source arxiv --json

Download

# Specify by source:id format
papers-cli download arxiv:2301.00001

# Specify by URL
papers-cli download https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.00001

# Download multiple papers at once
papers-cli download arxiv:2301.00001 arxiv:2312.12345

# Specify formats (arXiv: pdf, source)
papers-cli download arxiv:2301.00001 --format pdf,source

# Pipe from search results
papers-cli search "attention" --source arxiv --json | papers-cli download --stdin

# Force re-download
papers-cli download arxiv:2301.00001 --force

List / Show / Delete

# List downloaded papers
papers-cli list
papers-cli list --source arxiv --sort title
papers-cli list "attention" --from 2023

# Show paper details
papers-cli show arxiv:2301.00001

# Delete a paper
papers-cli delete arxiv:2301.00001
papers-cli delete arxiv:2301.00001 --yes  # Skip confirmation

Configuration

# Generate default config file
papers-cli config init

# View configuration
papers-cli config show
papers-cli config get download-dir

# Modify configuration
papers-cli config set download-dir ~/my-papers

Sources

Source	Target	API
arxiv	arXiv preprints	arXiv API (Atom Feed)
jstage	J-STAGE articles	J-STAGE WebAPI
irdb	Institutional repositories	CiNii Research (IRDB)

Storage

Type	Path
Config file	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/papers-cli/config.toml
Database	$XDG_DATA_HOME/papers-cli/papers.db
PDF storage	~/papers/{source}/ (configurable)

Development

# Build
dotnet build

# Test
dotnet test

# Run
dotnet run --project src/PapersCli.Cli

# Run a single test
dotnet run --project src/PapersCli.Cli.Tests -- --filter "SampleTest"

Tech Stack

• .NET 10 / C# / NativeAOT
• ConsoleAppFramework - CLI framework
• Spectre.Console - Terminal UI
• CsToml - TOML parser
• Microsoft.Data.Sqlite - SQLite
• TUnit - Test framework