AlphaClawXiv

Native OpenClaw plugin for AlphaXiv research workflows: OAuth login, paper discovery, paper content lookup, targeted PDF passage retrieval, and repository-reading tools.

Why This Exists

AlphaXiv exposes a hosted MCP endpoint. AlphaClawXiv wraps that endpoint as native OpenClaw commands and tools so the gateway does not need to connect to a remote MCP server during startup. This keeps gateway startup predictable while still giving agents access to AlphaXiv when a tool is actually used.

For upstream MCP behavior, see the AlphaXiv MCP documentation. The hosted server used by this plugin is validated against the live MCP tools/list endpoint; if the docs page and the live server differ, this plugin follows the live hosted surface so OpenClaw stays functional.

Install

Install by package name:

openclaw plugins install alphaclawxiv --force

OpenClaw checks ClawHub first and falls back to npm for package-name installs. Use an explicit source when you want to force one registry.

From ClawHub:

openclaw plugins install clawhub:alphaclawxiv --force

From npm:

openclaw plugins install npm:alphaclawxiv --force

Package pages:

• npm: alphaclawxiv
• ClawHub: alphaclawxiv

For local development from this repository:

cd plugins/alphaclawxiv
npm install
npm run build
openclaw plugins install ./plugins/alphaclawxiv --force

First Login

openclaw alphaclawxiv auth login
openclaw gateway restart

The login command prints an AlphaXiv OAuth URL, waits for the local callback, stores the resulting token in ~/.openclaw/alphaxiv/oauth.json, and writes ALPHAXIV_AUTH_HEADER to ~/.openclaw/.env for compatibility.

Check status without exposing secrets:

openclaw alphaclawxiv auth status

Remove local AlphaXiv auth state:

openclaw alphaclawxiv auth logout

Examples

Search for papers:

openclaw alphaclawxiv paper search "retrieval augmented generation"
openclaw alphaclawxiv paper search-semantic "Research on retrieval-augmented generation systems for large language models, including retrieval pipelines, grounding, and hallucination mitigation."
openclaw alphaclawxiv paper search-keyword "LoRA low-rank adaptation"
openclaw alphaclawxiv paper search-agentic "What are the latest approaches to reducing hallucination in large language models?"

Fetch paper content:

openclaw alphaclawxiv paper content "https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.10981"
openclaw alphaclawxiv paper content "https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.10981" --full-text

Retrieve PDF passages relevant to a question:

openclaw alphaclawxiv pdf ask "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.10981" "What is the main contribution?"

Read a GitHub repository file:

openclaw alphaclawxiv repo read "https://github.com/Riddhimaan-Senapati/AlphaClawXiv" "README.md"

The shorter alias is also supported:

openclaw alphaxiv paper search "graph retrieval augmented generation"

Verified On Windows

The plugin targets OpenClaw 2026.8.1 and is built from TypeScript with an oclif-based CLI. The build step emits dist/ and dist/commands/; the alphaclawxiv binary is an oclif runner in bin/run.js.

The following OpenClaw flows were live-tested on Windows against the hosted AlphaXiv service with current AlphaXiv OAuth:

openclaw alphaclawxiv auth status
openclaw alphaclawxiv paper search "retrieval augmented generation"
openclaw alphaclawxiv pdf ask "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.10981" "What is the main contribution?"

The installed OpenClaw extension also includes the bundled skill file at:

• ~/.openclaw/extensions/alphaclawxiv/skills/alphaxiv/SKILL.md

Verified at the skill level:

• the bundled OpenClaw skill file is present in the installed extension
• the alphaxiv skill appears in OpenClaw agent prompt metadata

Not verified end to end:

• direct native OpenClaw tool projection inside the Codex app-server tool list; the tested Codex path uses AlphaClawXiv through the local OpenClaw CLI

OpenClaw Agent Tools

When enabled, AlphaClawXiv registers the live AlphaXiv MCP surface across three families:

• Research tools: discover_papers, get_paper_content, answer_pdf_queries, read_files_from_github_repository.
• Researcher tools: find_researchers, get_researcher, get_researcher_papers, resolve_researchers, list_followed_researchers, follow_researcher, unfollow_researcher.
• Library tools: list_library, save_papers_to_folder, remove_papers_from_folder, move_papers_between_folders, create_folder, rename_folder, delete_folder, edit_private_paper_metadata.

download_papers accepts keywords, question, and difficulty (required), plus optional date filters (published_after, published_before) and prioritize. answer_pdf_queries takes a paper argument that accepts an arXiv ID, a URL, or a title, plus a queries array.

The terminal subcommands paper search, paper search-semantic, paper search-keyword, and paper search-agentic are local CLI conveniences that adapt your query into discover_papers inputs. They are not separate hosted MCP tool names.

Example prompt:

Use AlphaXiv to find recent retrieval-augmented generation survey papers, then compare their methods, datasets, and limitations.

Pitfalls

• Authenticate first. Tool calls fail if the stored AlphaXiv token is missing or expired.
• Restart OpenClaw after first login, install, or update.
• Package installs can take a few minutes while OpenClaw resolves and extracts ClawHub or npm packages.
• Keep the generic MCP startup config disabled unless you are debugging MCP connectivity.
• If openclaw gateway health times out just after restart, run openclaw gateway status, wait for warm-up, then retry.
• If openclaw gateway restart points at a deleted npx cache path, repair the Windows service with openclaw gateway install --force.
• If OpenClaw 2026.5.x reports that the Codex app-server binary is missing, reinstall/update OpenClaw and @openclaw/codex, then verify plugins.entries.codex.config.appServer.command points at the local codex.cmd if managed discovery still fails.
• Do not share ~/.openclaw/alphaxiv/oauth.json or ALPHAXIV_AUTH_HEADER.

Project Links

• Repository: https://github.com/Riddhimaan-Senapati/AlphaClawXiv
• Issues: https://github.com/Riddhimaan-Senapati/AlphaClawXiv/issues
• Contributing: https://github.com/Riddhimaan-Senapati/AlphaClawXiv/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md
• Code structure: https://github.com/Riddhimaan-Senapati/AlphaClawXiv/blob/main/docs/CODE_STRUCTURE.md
• Automated releases: https://github.com/Riddhimaan-Senapati/AlphaClawXiv/blob/main/docs/AUTOMATED_RELEASES.md

License

MIT.