Claude Scholar Sidekick connectorWhat Claude checks and formats in your bibliography.
The Claude Scholar Sidekick connector exposes 6 tools. All 6 read and check, 0 write to any account, since there is no account to plug in. Here is what Claude verifies in your references, the formats it produces, and what is still on you.
Verified Trustpilot reviews · AI, automation & growth agency
Why add it when you write papers
Scholar Sidekick starts from a scholarly identifier, whether a DOI, PMID, PMCID, ISBN, arXiv ID, ISSN, ADS bibcode or WHO IRIS link, and works from the bibliographic record behind it: resolving it, formatting it, exporting it, or checking it for retractions, open access and citation accuracy. The server runs locally on Claude Desktop.
Check that a citation matches its identifier. verifyCitation compares a claimed citation with the record resolved at its identifier and returns one of four verdicts (matched, mismatch, ambiguous, not found), with per-field similarity scores.
Go from a list of IDs to a bibliography. resolveIdentifier fetches the records as CSL JSON, formatCitation renders them in one of 10,000+ CSL styles, and exportCitation outputs formats such as BibTeX, RIS or EndNote.
Check the status of a work. checkRetraction flags work that was retracted, corrected or given an expression of concern, and checkOpenAccess says whether a legal open version exists and where.
What it does not do: it pushes nothing into your reference manager and does not watch your sources over time. Each check starts from a request in the conversation. For monitoring that runs without you, that is a separate trade, covered on the Integrations hub.
Five notions to get your bearings
What to keep in mind before reading on.
- Connector
- What links Claude to an outside service or program, set up once and then reused in every conversation.
- Tool
- Each named capability the connector makes available. Claude decides by itself which one fits your question.
- Local server
- An extension that runs on your computer through Claude Desktop. This one only calls Scholar Sidekick's public API.
- Identifier
- The unique code of a publication, such as a DOI or PMID, from which the tool finds the exact record.
- MCP
- The protocol connectors share, which lets Claude exchange with a program that is not its own.
Installing Scholar Sidekick in Claude Desktop
- 01
Open connectors
In Claude Desktop, go to settings, then Customize and Connectors, and search for Scholar Sidekick. The directory only offers it for the desktop app, not the web.
- 02
Add it
Click Connect on its row. In a Team or Enterprise workspace, an Owner or Primary Owner first turns the connector on for the organization, after which each member can add it.
- 03
Check what appears
If an authorization screen shows up, read it before accepting, since it sets the access. To fix a link that stopped responding, Disconnect and add it again.
The 6 tools in the Claude Scholar Sidekick connector
Scholar Sidekick gives Claude 6 tools: 6 that read your account, 0 that change something in it.
Six lookup and checking tools. Names stay as Claude displays them.
- 6 read
What Claude looks up and checks (6)
6 toolsRecords, styles, formats and checks, with nothing pushed anywhere.
resolveIdentifier
Turns a DOI, PMID, PMCID, ISBN, arXiv ID, ISSN, ADS bibcode or WHO IRIS link into a structured bibliographic record in CSL JSON. A single ID or a comma- or newline-separated batch goes through in one call.
formatCitation
Renders one or more identifiers in the style you need: Vancouver, AMA, APA, IEEE, CSE or any of 10,000+ CSL styles. Output comes as text, HTML or JSON, along with a block of provenance metadata.
exportCitation
Converts one or more identifiers to BibTeX, RIS, CSL JSON, EndNote, RefWorks, MEDLINE, Zotero RDF, CSV or plain text, ready to save to disk or hand to a reference manager.
checkRetraction
Checks whether a work has been retracted, corrected or given an expression of concern, using Crossref's updated-by data (Retraction Watch). One identifier per call.
checkOpenAccess
Tells you, based on Unpaywall, whether a publication is openly available, under which status (gold, green, hybrid, bronze or closed), and where its best legal version sits, with licence and version. One identifier per call.
verifyCitation
Matches a claimed citation against the record resolved at its identifier and returns one of four verdicts, with per-field similarity scores and the record found. One citation per call.
What Claude waits for before acting
By default, Claude pauses and waits for your go-ahead before an action taken in your name.
The publisher marks its tools as read-only and non-destructive; still, no source describes a confirmation specific to any of them. In a Team or Enterprise workspace, owners choose whether a member may let some actions through without a repeat prompt, and they can restrict the connector for the whole organization. Claude has no rights beyond yours: it only calls the publisher's public API, nothing else on your machine.
Plans and Scholar Sidekick
None of the 819 sheets in the official directory shows plan availability. For Scholar Sidekick, the information is not published anywhere either.
The general rule is published: desktop extensions install on Claude Desktop, and remote connectors are open to all users of Claude, Cowork, Claude Desktop and mobile. On Team and Enterprise, members only get it once an Owner or Primary Owner has turned it on. For the current status, check the Scholar Sidekick sheet in the official directory.
Scholar Sidekick's limits
No automation: the tools only run when Claude answers a question you put to it.
The 6 tools on the sheet are an observed floor: the publisher's documentation mentions a seventh, missing from the sheet, which this page leaves aside. The partner badge is not a security audit, and Anthropic states on every sheet that it does not choose a publisher's tools or guarantee their behaviour. Only the publisher documents this connector, in its GitHub repository. More ways to tie your tools together are on Integrations.
Need help connecting Scholar Sidekick to Claude?
A person reads every message.
