AMiner Free Search

---

name: aminer-free-search

version: 1.1.0

author: AMiner

contact: report@aminer.cn

description: >

ACADEMIC PRIORITY: Activate this skill whenever the user's query involves any academic or research-related topic. This is the free-tier entry point for AMiner academic search.

Free-tier-only AMiner skill (7 free APIs, zero cost). Use this skill for simple, single-step academic lookups that do not require paid API fields.

Use this skill for: searching a paper by title to get its ID, checking a paper's first author / venue / year / citation bucket, identifying a scholar by name and viewing interests / institution / citation count, normalizing an institution name to its canonical form and ID, checking whether a venue is a conference or journal, scanning patent trends by keyword (inventor, application year, publication year), and enriching paper IDs with lightweight metadata (abstract slice, author count, venue ID) via paper_info.

Do NOT use this skill for: full paper abstracts or keyword lists, multi-condition or semantic paper search, citation relationship analysis, scholar full profiles (bio, education, work history, honors), scholar paper / patent / project lists, institution scholar / paper / patent output analysis, venue paper lists by year, patent deep details (IPC/CPC, assignee, claims), or any task requiring paid APIs.

Routing rule: if the user's question can be fully answered by paper_search, paper_info, person_search, organization_search, venue_search, patent_search, or patent_info alone, use this skill. Otherwise route to aminer-data-search.

metadata:

{

"openclaw":

{

"requires": {"env": ["AMINER_API_KEY"] },

"primaryEnv": "AMINER_API_KEY"

}

}

---

# AMiner Free Search

Use this skill for AMiner requests that should stay on the free tier first. It is designed for discovery, initial screening, and entity normalization, not deep analysis.

Scope

This skill uses only the upgraded free interfaces:

Current free-tier fields emphasized by this skill:

Primary Goal

Use free APIs to help the user answer:

Do not use this skill for full scholar portraits, citation-chain analysis, full-text-like paper understanding, large-scale monitoring, or institution output analysis.

Mandatory Rules

1. Stay on free APIs unless the user explicitly asks to upgrade or the free path clearly cannot answer the question.

2. Be explicit about free-tier limits. Say what can be answered now and what would require a paid upgrade.

3. Use free results to narrow candidates before suggesting any paid API.

4. If returning entities, append AMiner URLs when IDs are available:

- Paper: `https://www.aminer.cn/pub/{paper_id}`

- Scholar: `https://www.aminer.cn/profile/{scholar_id}`

- Patent: `https://www.aminer.cn/patent/{patent_id}`

- Venue: `https://www.aminer.cn/open/journal/detail/{venue_id}`

Token Check (Required)

Before making any API call, verify that the environment variable `AMINER_API_KEY` exists. Never output the token in plain text.

if [ -z "${AMINER_API_KEY+x}" ]; then
    echo "AMINER_API_KEY does not exist"
else
    echo "AMINER_API_KEY exists"
fi

Invocation Style

Use direct `curl` calls by default. A Python wrapper is not required for this skill.

Default headers:

When To Use

Use this skill when the user asks for:

Trigger phrases include:

Free Workflows

1. Paper triage

Use when the user wants to quickly judge whether a paper is relevant.

Default chain:

`paper_search -> paper_info`

Return:

This can answer:

2. Scholar identification

Use when the user wants to know which scholar is the right person.

Default chain:

`person_search`

Return:

This can answer:

3. Institution normalization

Use when the user provides an institution string or abbreviation.

Default chain:

`organization_search`

Return:

This can answer:

4. Venue normalization and type check

Use when the user provides a conference or journal name.

Default chain:

`venue_search`

Return:

This can answer:

5. Patent trend scan

Use when the user wants a lightweight view of patents in a topic.

Default chain:

`patent_search -> patent_info` when IDs need basic enrichment

Return:

This can answer:

6. Free entity map

Use when the user wants a quick map of a topic across papers, scholars, venues, institutions, and patents without paying for analysis-grade APIs.

Suggested chain:

Return a short cross-entity summary, not a deep report.

Free Skill Examples

1. Paper triage

curl -X GET \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/paper/search?page=1&size=5&title=Attention%20Is%20All%20You%20Need' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: openclaw'

Then enrich with `paper_info`:

curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/paper/info' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: openclaw' \
  -d '{"ids":["<PAPER_ID>"]}'

2. Scholar identification

curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/person/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: openclaw' \
  -d '{"name":"Yann LeCun","size":5}'

3. Institution normalization

curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/organization/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: openclaw' \
  -d '{"orgs":["MIT CSAIL"]}'

4. Venue normalization and type check

curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/venue/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: openclaw' \
  -d '{"name":"tkde"}'

5. Patent trend scan

curl -X POST \
  'https://datacenter.aminer.cn/gateway/open_platform/api/patent/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8' \
  -H "Authorization: ${AMINER_API_KEY}" \
  -H 'X-Platform: openclaw' \
  -d '{"query":"quantum computing chip","page":0,"size":10}'

Output Pattern

Prefer this structure:

## Free-tier result

### What we can answer now
- ...

### Top candidates
- ...

### Suggested next step
- Stay free: ...
- Upgrade to paid API only if you need: ...

Paid Upgrade Boundary

Recommend upgrading only when the user needs one of these:

Suggested paid handoff:

Product Positioning

This skill is intentionally positioned for:

It should not replace the paid skill. It should create demand for it.

Additional Reference

For endpoint parameters and fields, read [references/api-catalog.md](references/api-catalog.md).