# papis/papis

Powerful and highly extensible command-line based document and bibliography manager.

Repository: https://github.com/papis/papis
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/papis
Homepage: http://papis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Language: HTML
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: bibtex, publications, zotero, mendeley, library, tex, arxiv, cli, command-line-tool, command-line, libgen, jabref, sci-hub, papers, crossref, doi, scholar, biblatex, citation, papis
Last push: 2026-08-23T09:51:23+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 88/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 66, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3480, "days_push": 10, "days_rel": 15, "gap_med": 190, "n_releases_24m": 4}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1769, forks 124 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:33.761810+00:00)

## What it is
Papis is a powerful and highly extensible command-line document and bibliography manager for organizing books, papers, and citations. It stores metadata in human-readable YAML files, supports BibTeX import/export, and can be extended with Python scripts and editor plugins.

## Use cases
- manage a personal library of academic papers from the command line
- fetch paper metadata automatically from a DOI when adding a PDF
- export my bibliography to BibTeX for LaTeX documents
- import my library from Zotero or Mendeley
- search my document library by author, title, or tags
- sync my reference library across machines without proprietary services
- integrate citation management into vim or emacs

## When to choose
- you prefer a CLI-first, scriptable alternative to Zotero or Mendeley
- you want human-readable, plain-text (YAML) storage for bibliographic data
- you need BibTeX/BibLaTeX export for LaTeX workflows
- you want editor integration with (Neo)vim or Emacs

## When to avoid
- you need a polished graphical reference manager out of the box
- you rely on proprietary cloud sync features of commercial tools
- you want a web-first experience (though a web app exists, CLI is primary)

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: cli, search-engine, documentation, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, education
- platform: cli, cross-platform, python
- tags: bibliography-manager, bibtex, citation-management, reference-manager, academic-papers, zotero-alternative, yaml-storage, tui, command-line

## Member repositories
- papis/papis (main) score 88

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:33.761810+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:26:06.467236+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/papis/papis (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:33.761810+00:00, sha 984161377ec6)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.