bibval

Citation validator. Check BibTeX entries against academic databases.

Validates bibliographic references by querying CrossRef, DBLP, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex.

Install

curl -fsSL https://evil-mind-evil-sword.github.io/releases/bibval/install.sh | sh

From source

Requires Zig 0.15.2+:

zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

The binary is in zig-out/bin/bibval.

Why?

BibTeX files accumulate errors over time. You copy a citation from Google Scholar, but the year is wrong. You import from Zotero, but the title has curly quotes that break compilation. You cite a preprint that's since been published, but now your bibliography points to the wrong venue.

bibval catches these by checking your entries against the source of truth: CrossRef for DOIs, DBLP for CS publications, Semantic Scholar for AI-powered search, and OpenAlex for broad coverage. It queries them in parallel and caches responses locally, so repeated runs are fast. When it finds a mismatch—wrong year, different title, missing DOI—it tells you exactly what's wrong and where the correct data came from.

Usage

bibval references.bib

Validate multiple files:

bibval paper.bib thesis.bib

Options

Flag	Description
--no-crossref	Disable CrossRef API
--no-dblp	Disable DBLP API
--no-semantic	Disable Semantic Scholar API
--no-openalex	Disable OpenAlex API
--no-cache	Disable caching of API responses
-s, --strict	Exit with error if any issues found
-v, --verbose	Verbose output
-k, --key KEY	Only validate entries with these citation keys (comma-separated)
--json	Output JSON format

Example Output

bibval Report
==================================================

Processed: 84 entries
  58 validated, 9 warnings, 13 errors, 4 not found

ERRORS (13)
  [bingham_pyro_2019] ERROR Year mismatch: 2019 vs 2018 (via DBLP)
       Local:  2019
       Remote: 2018
  ...

WARNINGS (9)
  [carpenter_stan_2017] WARN Title slightly different (similarity: 88%) (via CrossRef)
  ...

OK (58)
  [lew_probabilistic_2023] Validated against CrossRef
  ...

Validators

bibval queries multiple academic databases:

• CrossRef - DOI resolution and metadata
• DBLP - Computer science bibliography
• Semantic Scholar - AI-powered academic search
• OpenAlex - Open catalog of 250M+ scholarly works

What It Checks

• Year mismatches - Publication year differs from database
• Title differences - Fuzzy matching with similarity scores
• Author discrepancies - Missing authors or spelling variations
• Missing DOIs - Entry lacks DOI when one exists

Caching

API responses are cached locally to speed up repeated validations. Cache is stored in ~/.cache/bibval/.

Disable with --no-cache.

Exit Codes

• 0 - All entries validated successfully (or warnings only)
• 1 - Errors found or validation failed

Use --strict to treat warnings as errors.

Related

bibval builds on the APIs of several academic databases:

Primary Sources. CrossRef is the canonical source for DOI metadata—bibval checks here first for published articles. DBLP has been the computer science community's bibliography since 1993, maintained by Schloss Dagstuhl and released as open data. Semantic Scholar adds AI-powered features like paper embeddings and citation context.

Other Databases. OpenAlex is an open catalog of 250M+ scholarly works that replaced Microsoft Academic.

Reference Managers. For managing bibliographies rather than validating them, Zotero is open-source with good browser integration. JabRef is BibTeX-native. Both can export entries that bibval can then validate.

License

MIT