APaper plugin

Academic paper-authoring tools packaged as a native Codex plugin: literature research through MCP, academic writing skills, and publication-quality figures. MCP templates and portable skills are also included for other compatible clients.

Tool	Purpose
apaper-mcp	Paper research and literature search through MCP.
writing	Revise academic prose, with IEEE journal, LaTeX, and theorem-statement guidance.
creating-figures	Publication-quality TikZ and CeTZ figures, including examples and rendering guidance.

The skills are sourced from isomoes/skills.

Install the Codex plugin

Use a Codex version with codex plugin support. Install uv/uvx and Python 3.12+ for the research MCP server, with uvx on Codex's PATH.

Add the marketplace and install APaper:

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

Restart Codex and start a new thread in your paper repository. The plugin bundles apaper-mcp, writing, and creating-figures. Codex manages installation and updates. The first MCP launch downloads apaper-mcp from PyPI. Figure compilation additionally needs LaTeX or Typst, as described in the skill.

In the Codex app, open the plugins directory, choose the AI4Paper marketplace, and select APaper. Try these prompts:

• "Use APaper to find related papers for my research topic."
• "Use APaper to revise this abstract for clarity and precision."
• "Use APaper to create a TikZ architecture diagram for this method."

To test a local checkout before publishing, run from this repository:

codex plugin marketplace add .
codex plugin add apaper-plugin@ai4paper

Use either the local checkout or GitHub as the source for the ai4paper marketplace. To switch sources, run codex plugin marketplace remove ai4paper before adding the other source.

For updates from GitHub:

codex plugin marketplace upgrade ai4paper
codex plugin add apaper-plugin@ai4paper

Then start a new thread. To uninstall, run codex plugin remove apaper-plugin@ai4paper.

If you previously used the repository installer for Codex, remove its apaper-mcp entry from your paper repository's .codex/config.toml and its copied .agents/skills/{writing,creating-figures} directories before switching to the plugin. Save local customizations first; OpenCode may also use those shared skills. This avoids loading APaper twice.

The native package uses .codex-plugin/plugin.json, .mcp.json, and the existing skills/. The marketplace catalog points at the repository root, so GitHub installations use the skills bundled in the same revision. See the official plugin packaging documentation.

Manual installation and other clients

mcp/ contains ready-to-merge client configuration examples. Copy the two folders under skills/ into your client's supported skill directory, keeping each folder's SKILL.md and supporting files together. Any client supporting stdio MCP can launch uvx with arguments ["apaper-mcp"].

Development and publishing

Use Node.js 24+ for the TypeScript tests:

npm ci
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run pack:check

The npm package ships the native Codex manifest, MCP configuration, MCP templates, and skills. Node.js and npm are used for development and publishing. Keep the version in .codex-plugin/plugin.json aligned with package.json and package-lock.json when preparing a release. Release publishing uses npm trusted publishing through GitHub OIDC. See prompt/release.md for the release process.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.