Academic Research Hub
PassAudited by VirusTotal on May 12, 2026.
Overview
Type: OpenClaw Skill Name: academic-research-hub Version: 0.1.0 The skill bundle is classified as benign. All code and documentation align with the stated purpose of searching, downloading, and managing academic papers. The `scripts/research.py` uses legitimate Python libraries (arxiv, semanticscholar, biopython, requests) to interact with academic databases and download PDFs, writing files to user-specified or default directories. There is no evidence of data exfiltration, malicious execution, persistence mechanisms, or prompt injection attempts in `SKILL.md` or `references/readme.md` to mislead the agent into harmful actions. The installation instructions even include a warning against `--break-system-packages`, promoting secure practices.
Findings (0)
Artifact-based informational review of SKILL.md, metadata, install specs, static scan signals, and capability signals. ClawScan does not execute the skill or run runtime probes.
Installing dependencies may pull newer package versions than the author tested.
The skill depends on public Python packages with lower-bound version constraints rather than exact pins. This is normal for a Python-based research tool, but users should install in a virtual environment and be aware of dependency provenance.
arxiv>=2.0.0 semanticscholar>=0.8.0 biopython>=1.81 requests>=2.31.0
Use a virtual environment, review dependencies if needed, and prefer a locked requirements file for reproducible installs.
The skill can create directories and save downloaded PDF files where the user specifies.
The script downloads PDFs from discovered paper URLs and writes them to a local output directory. This is expected for the stated paper-download feature, but it is still a local file-writing capability.
response = requests.get(pdf_url, timeout=30)
...
with open(filepath, "wb") as f:
f.write(response.content)Download only from trusted academic sources and use a dedicated output directory such as a project folder.
Users may expect broader search coverage than the implementation provides.
This conflicts with SKILL.md wording that lists Google Scholar as a supported source. The mismatch appears to be a capability/documentation inconsistency rather than malicious behavior.
Google Scholar not included (no API)
Treat Google Scholar support as unavailable unless the maintainer clarifies or updates the implementation and documentation.