scholar-search-x49

ReviewAudited by ClawScan on May 11, 2026.

Overview

This is mostly a coherent academic-search API skill, but its credential instructions sometimes use an undefined generic KEY variable that could accidentally send the wrong local secret to scholar.x49.ai.

Install only if you are comfortable sending academic search queries to scholar.x49.ai. Before use, correct the Authorization header examples to use SCHOLAR_KEY or SCHOLAR_API_KEY consistently, and avoid exposing unrelated environment variables such as a generic KEY.

Findings (3)

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.

Medium

#ASI03: Identity and Privilege Abuse

What this means

If an agent copies those examples and the local environment has a generic KEY variable, it could send an unrelated secret to the Scholar API; if KEY is unset, the skill may fail authentication.

Why it was flagged

The documented credential variable is SCHOLAR_KEY/SCHOLAR_API_KEY, but later examples send ${KEY}, an undefined generic environment variable, as the Bearer token.

Skill content

SCHOLAR_KEY="${SCHOLAR_API_KEY:-psk_tLzPCmJdUw5oAHGeXL2H_fMrDdSyiF_SBJfn2p5uCO4}" ... -H "Authorization: Bearer ${KEY}"

Recommendation

Do not use the examples as-is until the Authorization header consistently uses ${SCHOLAR_KEY} or a clearly declared, scoped Scholar API key.

Low

#ASI02: Tool Misuse and Exploitation

What this means

Search requests may be executed through shell commands, so poorly escaped user-provided queries could cause errors or unintended shell behavior.

Why it was flagged

The skill enables Bash and documents curl commands to call the external API. This is expected for an instruction-only API skill, but Bash is a broad tool surface.

Skill content

allowed-tools: Bash ... curl -s "https://scholar.x49.ai/api/v1/papers/search"

Recommendation

Use careful shell quoting or safer request construction, and review commands before running them with unusual query text.

Low

#ASI07: Insecure Inter-Agent Communication

What this means

Academic search terms, filters, author names, or paper references may be visible to the Scholar API provider.

Why it was flagged

The skill sends search queries and filters to the scholar.x49.ai API. This external provider flow is disclosed and purpose-aligned.

Skill content

The API base URL is `https://scholar.x49.ai/api/v1` ... "query": "transformer attention mechanism"

Recommendation

Avoid submitting confidential research topics or private identifiers unless you trust scholar.x49.ai and its data handling.