---
title: RefCheck
emoji: 🔍
colorFrom: blue
colorTo: indigo
sdk: gradio
app_file: app.py
python_version: 3.11
suggested_hardware: cpu-basic
fullWidth: true
short_description: Upload BibTeX, validate citations, download fixes.
tags:
  - bibtex
  - citations
  - academic
  - bibliography
---

# RefCheck 🔍

> **A Citation Hallucination Detector & Auto-Fixer**  
> Validate and automatically correct your BibTeX bibliography against multiple academic databases.

[![Python 3.9+](https://img.shields.io/badge/python-3.9+-blue.svg)](https://www.python.org/downloads/)
[![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-green.svg)](LICENSE)

---

## Why RefCheck?

Academic papers often contain citation errors — wrong titles, incorrect authors, mismatched years, or even completely fabricated references (hallucinations from AI tools). **RefCheck** automatically:

- ✅ **Validates** each citation against 6 academic databases
- 🔧 **Auto-fixes** metadata mismatches (title, authors, year, DOI)
- 🗑️ **Removes** unverifiable/hallucinated entries
- 📊 **Reports** a clear verification summary

---

## Features

### Multi-Source Verification

RefCheck cross-references your citations against:

| Source | Lookup Methods |
|--------|----------------|
| **arXiv** | arXiv ID, Title search |
| **CrossRef** | DOI, Title search |
| **DBLP** | Title search |
| **Semantic Scholar** | DOI, Title search |
| **OpenAlex** | DOI, Title search |
| **Google Scholar** | Title search (disabled by default) |

### Two-Pass Workflow

1. **Pass 1 — Validate & Fix**: Checks each entry, auto-corrects metadata, removes invalid citations
2. **Pass 2 — Verify**: Re-validates the cleaned file to confirm all entries are correct

---

## Installation

```bash
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/voidful/RefCheck.git
cd RefCheck

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt
```

### Requirements

- Python 3.9+
- Dependencies: `bibtexparser`, `requests`, `beautifulsoup4`, `rich`, `Unidecode`, `lxml`

---

## Usage

### Hugging Face Space

This repository is ready to run as a Gradio Space. Create a Hugging Face Space with the Gradio SDK, push these files, and the Space will launch `app.py`.

The Space UI accepts a `.bib` upload and returns:

- a corrected BibTeX file
- a Markdown validation report
- a list of entries that still need manual review

### Basic Usage

```bash
# Validate and auto-fix a bib file
python main.py --bib references.bib
```

### Command-Line Options

| Option | Short | Description |
|--------|-------|-------------|
| `--bib` | `-b` | Path to your `.bib` file (required) |
| `--output` | `-o` | Output report path (optional) |

### Example

```bash
# Process your bibliography
python main.py --bib paper/references.bib

# With custom output path
python main.py --bib refs.bib --output validation_report.md
```

---

## How It Works

```
┌─────────────────┐
│  Load .bib file │
└────────┬────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  For each entry:                        │
│  1. Query academic databases            │
│  2. Compare metadata (title, author, yr)│
│  3. Calculate confidence score          │
└────────┬────────────────────────────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Decision:                              │
│  • confidence > 85% → Auto-fix metadata │
│  • Match found      → Keep as-is        │
│  • No match         → Remove entry      │
└────────┬────────────────────────────────┘
         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Save updated .bib file                 │
│  Run verification pass                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

---

## Output

RefCheck displays real-time progress and a final summary:

```
📚 BibGuard - Auto-Fix & Verify
   Target: references.bib

Found 42 entries. Running validation and auto-fix...

Validating & Fixing ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100% 42/42 ✓ 38 ⚠ 2 ✗ 2

✏️  Updates:
   - Fixed 2 entries (metadata updated)
   - Removed 2 invalid/hallucinated entries
✓ File saved.

🔄 Double checking (Re-validation)...

Verifying ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100% 40/40 ✓ 40

==================================================
📊 Final Status
==================================================
  Total:      40
  ✓ Verified: 40
  ⚠ Issues:   0
  ✗ Not found: 0
```

### Status Meanings

| Symbol | Meaning |
|--------|---------|
| ✅ Verified | Entry matches a known publication |
| ⚠️ Fixed | Metadata was auto-corrected |
| ❌ Removed | Entry could not be verified (likely hallucination) |

---

## Project Structure

```
RefCheck/
├── main.py              # Entry point & workflow orchestration
├── requirements.txt     # Python dependencies
├── README.md
└── src/
    ├── fetcher.py       # API clients for academic databases
    ├── comparator.py    # Metadata comparison & scoring
    ├── parser.py        # BibTeX parsing & saving
    └── utils.py         # Progress display & text utilities
```

---

## License

MIT License — see [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.

---

## Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

---

## Acknowledgments

Built with:
- [bibtexparser](https://github.com/sciunto-org/python-bibtexparser) for BibTeX handling
- [Rich](https://github.com/Textualize/rich) for beautiful terminal output
- APIs from arXiv, CrossRef, DBLP, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex