apaper-plugin

An academic paper-authoring toolkit for AI coding agents. It bundles writing and figure skills together with the apaper-mcp paper-research MCP server so a single setup gives your agent everything it needs to search the literature, draft IEEE-style prose, and generate publication- quality figures.

Install it as a Claude Code plugin, install it into OpenCode via OCX, or add the skills and MCP server to OpenAI Codex (or any other agent supported by the skills CLI).

What's inside

Skills (skills/)

Sourced from isomoes/skills:

Skill	Purpose
writing	Revise and strengthen academic prose; applies IEEE journal rules for journal work.
creating-figures	Publication-quality scientific figures (TikZ/CeTZ).

MCP server (.mcp.json)

Wires up @ai4paper/apaper-mcp, which exposes tools for searching IACR / DBLP / Google Scholar / arXiv, collecting BibTeX entries, and downloading papers. The server is launched on demand via npx -y @ai4paper/apaper-mcp, so no global install is needed.

OCX registry (registry.jsonc)

An OCX registry manifest exposing the skills and MCP server as installable components for OpenCode. The built registry is published to GitHub Pages by .github/workflows/registry.yml.

Install for Claude Code

From a marketplace (recommended)

This repo ships its own .claude-plugin/marketplace.json, so you can add it as a marketplace and install in two commands:

/plugin marketplace add ai4paper/apaper-plugin
/plugin install apaper-plugin@apaper

The bundled MCP server is registered automatically. Once the plugin is enabled, the skills are namespaced under the plugin name, e.g. /apaper-plugin:writing.

Install for OpenCode (via OCX)

This repo ships an OCX registry (registry.jsonc), published to GitHub Pages at https://ai4paper.github.io/apaper-plugin. With the ocx CLI installed:

# One-time setup in your project (skip if you already use ocx)
ocx init

# Add this registry under the "apaper" alias
ocx registry add https://ai4paper.github.io/apaper-plugin --name apaper

# Install everything: both skills + the apaper-mcp server
ocx add apaper/apaper

Skills are copied into .opencode/skills/ and the MCP server is merged into .opencode/opencode.jsonc — you own the files and can customize them freely.

You can also install pieces individually:

ocx add apaper/writing           # writing skill only
ocx add apaper/creating-figures  # figures skill only
ocx add apaper/apaper-mcp        # MCP server config only

Add --global to install into ~/.config/opencode instead of the current project, or use an ephemeral registry without configuring it:

ocx add apaper/apaper --from https://ai4paper.github.io/apaper-plugin

Install for Codex

Codex doesn't use the Claude plugin system, so the skills and MCP server are added separately.

Skills — via the skills CLI

Use the skills CLI (npx skills) to copy the skills into Codex. No global install — npx fetches it on demand:

# Install both skills for Codex (project-local, under .agents/skills/)
npx skills add ai4paper/apaper-plugin -a codex

# Install globally instead (under ~/.codex/skills/)
npx skills add ai4paper/apaper-plugin -a codex -g

# Pick specific skills by name
npx skills add ai4paper/apaper-plugin -a codex --skill writing creating-figures

Add -y to skip the confirmation prompt, or --list to preview the available skills without installing.

MCP server — via config.toml

Register apaper-mcp in Codex's config (~/.codex/config.toml for all projects, or .codex/config.toml inside a trusted project):

[mcp_servers.apaper-mcp]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@ai4paper/apaper-mcp"]

Or add it from the command line, which writes the same entry for you:

codex mcp add apaper-mcp -- npx -y @ai4paper/apaper-mcp

Run /mcp in the Codex TUI to confirm the server is connected.

Local development

Clone this repo and point Claude Code at it directly:

git clone https://github.com/ai4paper/apaper-plugin
claude --plugin-dir ./apaper-plugin

After editing skills or the manifest, run /reload-plugins in Claude Code to pick up the changes without restarting.

To build and inspect the OCX registry locally (requires bun):

./scripts/build-registry.sh   # builds to dist/

License

MIT. See LICENSE.