AlphaClawXiv

Native OpenClaw plugin for AlphaXiv research workflows: OAuth login, paper search, paper content lookup, PDF Q&A, 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.

Install

Install by package name:

openclaw plugins install alphaclawxiv

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

From npm:

openclaw plugins install npm:alphaclawxiv

Package pages:

• npm: alphaclawxiv
• ClawHub: alphaclawxiv

For local development from this repository:

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"

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

Ask questions about a PDF:

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/owner/repo" "README.md"

The shorter alias is also supported:

openclaw alphaxiv paper search "graph retrieval augmented generation"

OpenClaw Agent Tools

When enabled, AlphaClawXiv registers these native tools:

• paper_search: Search AlphaXiv by topic, method, benchmark, author, or keyword.
• get_paper_content: Retrieve paper content from an AlphaXiv, arXiv, or paper URL.
• answer_pdf_queries: Ask targeted questions about a PDF URL.
• read_files_from_github_repository: Read implementation files from GitHub repositories.

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.
• 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.
• 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.