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/verify-citations

Checks that every citation key in the LaTeX files exists in the .bib file and verifies the references through Perplexity.

Category: audit
Field: finance
License: MIT (repo LICENSE, "Copyright (c) 2025 Alex Dickerson")
Updated: 2026-03-12
Stages: literature-discovery · revision-editing

Verify Citations Skill

Audit citations for correctness. Checks that every \cite{KEY} has a matching BibTeX entry and verifies each entry against Perplexity web search.

Examples

  • /verify-citations -- audit all citations in main.tex
  • /verify-citations --key blume1983 -- verify single entry

Workflow

  1. Read main.tex and extract all \cite{KEY} and \citep{KEY} commands
  2. Read the .bib file to get the full BibTeX database

  3. For each citation key: a. Check KEY exists in .bib -- if missing, flag as MISSING b. Extract: author, title, year, journal from the BibTeX entry c. Use perplexity_search to verify: "{title}" {first author surname} {year} d. Build comparison table:

    Field BibTeX value Perplexity result Match?
    Authors {from .bib} {from search} Y/N/--
    Title ... ... Y/N/--
    Year ... ... Y/N/--
    Journal ... ... Y/N/--

    Use Y = confirmed, N = mismatch, -- = not found in search. CRITICAL: If Perplexity is blank for a field, write "NOT FOUND IN SEARCH" -- NEVER fill from memory.

  4. Classify each citation:

  5. OK: ALL fields confirmed
  6. PARTIAL: Authors + title confirmed, journal/volume not found
  7. MISMATCH: Fields contradict search results
  8. UNVERIFIED: Cannot find paper online

  9. MISSING: Key in \cite{} but not in .bib

  10. For forthcoming papers: use perplexity_ask as fallback to check journal placement

  11. Output verification report:

    Text Only
    Citation Audit: main.tex
Total: N citations checked
OK: X | Partial: Y | Mismatch: Z | Missing: W

--- FLAGGED ENTRIES ---
[KEY] STATUS: details...

Process citations in batches of 5 to respect Perplexity rate limits.