Paste a DOI, PMID, ISBN, arXiv ID, ADS bibcode, or PMCID in a note - replace it with a formatted citation in one command. No reference manager required.
Free Obsidian community plugin. Vancouver, APA, IEEE, plus 10,000+ CSL styles. Per-note BibTeX / RIS export, retraction and open-access checks, single-citation verifier.
Eleven commands cover the identifier-to-citation flow inside Obsidian: format the selection, replace at caret, insert via modal, export the whole note as .bib or .ris, check identifiers for retractions or open access, and verify a claimed citation against Crossref, PubMed, and OpenAlex.
Already using a Zotero or BibTeX library inside Obsidian? The Citations plugin by Hans Drexler is excellent for that workflow. Scholar Sidekick is for the case before you have a curated library - you want a citation now, from an identifier you have right now.
10.1038/nature12373) or doi.org URL.PMID:30049270), or pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov URL.PMC7793608) or NCBI URL.2301.07041) or legacy (cs.CL/0301001), with or without version suffix.Detection regexes are vendored from the upstream API source with a build-time drift detector to keep the vendored copy in sync with the canonical patterns.
?provenance=1 so each citation records which upstream registry supplied the metadata, plus fetch timestamp and transform version.?checks=retraction,oa so each formatted citation arrives alongside its retraction status (Crossref + Retraction Watch) and open-access status (Unpaywall). Off by default; adds a few seconds of latency per request.https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/format (and /api/retraction-check, /api/oa-check, /api/verify for the safety / verifier commands).Listed in the Obsidian community plugins store. In Obsidian: open Settings - Community plugins, click Browse, search for Scholar Sidekick, then Install and Enable.
It turns any scholarly identifier in your Obsidian notes into a formatted citation, without leaving the editor. Eleven commands cover single-citation insertion, in-place replacement, per-note BibTeX / RIS export, retraction and open-access checks, and a citation verifier. Output uses the same engine as scholar-sidekick.com, so the formatting is identical between the website, the browser extension, and the plugin.
Yes. No account required, no API key, no payment. The plugin uses a trusted-client handshake (X-Scholar-Client header) that grants the anonymous tier of the Scholar Sidekick API - 60 requests per minute per IP. Plenty for interactive note-writing; for batch workflows on hundreds of identifiers, see the API docs for paid plans.
No. The plugin is a citation formatter and identifier-aware exporter - it does not store libraries, manage PDFs, or sync collections. If you already have a curated reference library and use it inside Obsidian, the Citations plugin by Hans Drexler is excellent for that workflow. Scholar Sidekick is for the case before you have a curated library: you have an identifier now and want a citation now. The per-note BibTeX / RIS export is also a one-way bridge if you ever want to move identifiers from your notes into a reference manager.
DOI (bare or doi.org URL), PMID (bare, labelled, or pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov URL), PMCID (bare or NCBI URL), ISBN (10 or 13 digit), arXiv ID (modern 2301.07041 or legacy cs.CL/0301001), ISSN, and ADS bibcode (within the Insert Citation modal). The detection regexes are vendored from the upstream API source, with a build-time drift detector to keep the vendored copy in sync with the canonical patterns.
Five built-in quick picks: Vancouver, APA, AMA, IEEE, CSE. Plus a search box that covers any of 10,000+ CSL styles - Nature, Cell, Lancet, Chicago Manual of Style, Harvard, MLA, ACS, Royal Society, and thousands of journal-specific styles. Your most-recently-used style is persisted in the plugin settings.
Both. The five built-in styles emit text only. The search-picked CSL styles can emit HTML, which preserves italics, small caps, and other inline markup that survives in Obsidian's reading view. Selecting HTML with a built-in style falls back to text rather than failing.
The plugin sends the identifier text you ask it to format directly to https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/format over HTTPS. Retraction, open-access, and verify commands additionally call /api/retraction-check, /api/oa-check, or /api/verify. No API key is required - the plugin uses an anonymous trusted-client handshake. Inputs are not retained or used for training. See the API privacy policy for full disclosure.
Every API call carries an x-scholar-transform-version header. Identical inputs at a fixed transform_version produce byte-identical output - so a citation generated today and a citation generated next year against the same DOI will be the same. The plugin logs x-request-id and x-scholar-transform-version to Obsidian's developer console for diagnostic support (Cmd+Opt+I on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+I on Windows / Linux).
GitHub issues on the plugin source tree at github.com/mlava/scholar-sidekick-obsidian. Include the Obsidian version, plugin version, and the x-request-id from the developer console when filing API-related issues.