---
name: semantic-scholar-keyed-access
description: Semantic Scholar API key lives in the semantic-search skill .env; use it to avoid 429s
metadata: 
  node_type: memory
  type: reference
  originSessionId: 14deeefc-610a-40ee-b01c-03cf4f1f54b6
---

The keyless Semantic Scholar API (api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1) 429s fast.
A real S2 key (len 40) is stored at
`~/.claude/skills/semantic-search/.env` as `SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY`.

Use it for direct S2 calls:
```sh
set -a; . ~/.claude/skills/semantic-search/.env; set +a
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/arXiv:<ID>?fields=title,authors,citationCount" \
  -H "x-api-key: $SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY"
```
or just call the `semantic-search` skill, which loads the key itself.

The `bibtex` MCP (DBLP/S2) sometimes returns 0 for brand-new arXiv papers
(days old); arXiv `citation_author` meta tags are the authoritative author list
and the keyed S2 API confirms them once indexed. See [[qmd-prefer-lexical]] for
the analogous local-search gotcha.