citation-management

ISSUES FOUND max severity CRITICALSkillSpector Do not install 100 registry K-Dense-AI last scanned 2026-10-21 1 scan

8 findings (5 critical, 2 medium, 1 low), mainly data exfiltration, social engineering, unauthorized tool use. Most recent scan 2026-10-21.

Findings8

Critical5

High0

Medium2

Low1

Analyzersstatic bytecode pipeline correlation behavioral trigger

Scanner version2.3.1

Second scanner: NVIDIA SkillSpector

VerdictDo not install 100

Score100 / 100

Issues26

CategoriesData Exfiltration Dangerous Code Execution analysis-evasion

Version2.12.0 (static)

Independent static run, no language model, over the same files as the Cisco scan above. How the two scanners compare across the whole corpus: Two scanners, one corpus.

What this skill does

Comprehensive citation management for academic research. Search OpenAlex, PubMed, and Google Scholar for papers, extract accurate metadata, validate citations, and generate properly formatted BibTeX entries. This skill should be used when you need to find papers, verify citation information, convert DOIs to BibTeX, or ensure reference accuracy in scientific writing.

Package: 22 files, 293 KB
SKILL.md: 1816 words, 12+ sections
Code: Python (8)
Allowed tools: Read Write Edit Bash WebSearch WebFetch
License: MIT License
Compatibility: Requires Python 3.9+ with requests. Google Scholar search additionally needs scholarly. Needs network access to api.openalex.org, api.crossref.org, eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, doi.org, export.arxiv.org, and api.datacite.org.

SKILL.md covers: Citation Management · Overview · When to Use This Skill · Core Workflow · Phase 1: Paper Discovery and Search · OpenAlex: multidisciplinary REST API; optional OPENALEX_API_KEY for account quota · PubMed: the authority for biomedical and life sciences (35M+ citations) · Google Scholar: broadest reach, but scraped -- rate-limited and prone to blocking · Phase 2: Metadata Extraction · Phase 2.5: Metadata Enrichment via Web Search (MANDATORY) · Phase 3: BibTeX Formatting · Phase 4: Citation Validation

Findings

CRITICAL Cross-file env var exfiltration: 5 files Data Exfiltrationbehavioral

Environment variable access with network calls in scripts/extract_metadata.py, scripts/search_openalex.py, scripts/search_pubmed.py

Remediation: Review data flow across files: scripts/validate_citations.py, scripts/doi_to_bibtex.py, scripts/search_openalex.py, scripts/extract_metadata.py, scripts/search_pubmed.py

CRITICAL Cross-file exfiltration chain: 5 files Data Exfiltrationbehavioral

Multi-file exfiltration chain detected: scripts/extract_metadata.py, scripts/search_openalex.py, scripts/search_pubmed.py collect data → encode → scripts/doi_to_bibtex.py, scripts/validate_citations.py, scripts/extract_metadata.py, scripts/search_openalex.py, scripts/search_pubmed.py transmit to network

Remediation: Review data flow across files: scripts/validate_citations.py, scripts/doi_to_bibtex.py, scripts/search_openalex.py, scripts/extract_metadata.py, scripts/search_pubmed.py

CRITICAL Environment variable access with network calls detected Data Exfiltrationbehavioral

Script accesses environment variables and makes network calls in /home/runner/work/skill-scanner-test/skill-scanner-test/skills/K-Dense-AI-scientific-agent-skills/skills/citation-management/scripts/extract_metadata.py

/home/runner/work/skill-scanner-test/skill-scanner-test/skills/K-Dense-AI-scientific-agent-skills/skills/citation-management/scripts/extract_metadata.py

Remediation: Remove environment variable harvesting or network transmission

CRITICAL Environment variable access with network calls detected Data Exfiltrationbehavioral

/home/runner/work/skill-scanner-test/skill-scanner-test/skills/K-Dense-AI-scientific-agent-skills/skills/citation-management/scripts/search_openalex.py

Remediation: Remove environment variable harvesting or network transmission

CRITICAL Environment variable access with network calls detected Data Exfiltrationbehavioral

/home/runner/work/skill-scanner-test/skill-scanner-test/skills/K-Dense-AI-scientific-agent-skills/skills/citation-management/scripts/search_pubmed.py

Remediation: Remove environment variable harvesting or network transmission

MEDIUM Potential description-behavior mismatch Social Engineeringstatic

Skill performs actions not reflected in its description

SKILL.md

Remediation: Ensure description accurately reflects all skill capabilities

MEDIUM Python code block executes shell commands Command Injectionbehavioral

Code block in references/core_workflow.md at line 193 contains potentially dangerous Python code.

references/core_workflow.md:193

> subprocess.run(

Remediation: Review the code block for security implications.

LOW Code uses search/grep patterns but Grep tool not in allowed-tools Unauthorized Tool Usestatic

Skill restricts tools to ['Read', 'Write', 'Edit', 'Bash', 'WebSearch', 'WebFetch'] but code uses regex search patterns

SKILL.md

Remediation: Add 'Grep' to allowed-tools or remove regex search operations

What is in the package

22 files, 293 KB. Show the list.

File	Kind	Size
`SKILL.md`	doc	16 KB
`assets/bibtex_template.bib`	other	9.1 KB
`assets/citation_checklist.md`	doc	10 KB
`references/api_contracts.md`	doc	6.6 KB
`references/best_practices.md`	doc	2.7 KB
`references/bibtex_formatting.md`	doc	19 KB
`references/citation_validation.md`	doc	19 KB
`references/core_workflow.md`	doc	20 KB
`references/example_workflows.md`	doc	3.3 KB
`references/google_scholar_search.md`	doc	18 KB
`references/metadata_extraction.md`	doc	21 KB
`references/pubmed_search.md`	doc	19 KB
`references/script_reference.md`	doc	7.4 KB
`references/search_strategies.md`	doc	2.7 KB
`scripts/_common.py`	script	11 KB
`scripts/doi_to_bibtex.py`	script	6.6 KB
`scripts/extract_metadata.py`	script	29 KB
`scripts/format_bibtex.py`	script	11 KB
`scripts/search_google_scholar.py`	script	8.5 KB
`scripts/search_openalex.py`	script	12 KB
`scripts/search_pubmed.py`	script	15 KB
`scripts/validate_citations.py`	script	28 KB

External hosts referenced

doi.org arxiv.org eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov api.crossref.org api.datacite.org export.arxiv.org pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.nature.com www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov help.openalex.org scholar.google.com alphafold.ebi.ac.uk dx.doi.org meshb.nlm.nih.gov support.datacite.org api.openalex.org community.crossref.org github.com info.arxiv.org ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pyzotero.readthedocs.io scholarly.readthedocs.io www.bibtex.org www.crossref.org docs.openalex.org openalex.org pandas.pydata.org proceedings.neurips.cc www.nlm.nih.gov

Hostnames that appear in the skill's files. Referencing a host is not a finding; compare against the findings above and the skill's stated purpose.

Environment variables referenced

NCBI_API_KEY OPENALEX_API_KEY NCBI_EMAIL OPENALEX_EMAIL FIRST_AUTHOR

Package contents recorded 2026-10-22 at commit 593377bb0487. The scan above ran against the version current at scan time; the two can differ if the skill has since been updated.

What we checked

Static analyzer. Pattern rules over SKILL.md and bundled files: known-bad commands, exfiltration URLs, secrets, obfuscation.
Bytecode analyzer.
Pipeline analyzer.
Correlation analyzer.
Behavioral analyzer. Checks what the skill asks the agent to do against what its description claims it does.
Trigger analyzer. Looks for instructions that fire on conditions the user did not ask for.

What we did not check

Runtime behaviour. The skill was not executed; findings come from reading its files.
Anything fetched at install or run time, including remote scripts, package dependencies, and URLs the skill tells the agent to open.
Content the analyzers cannot read: images, binaries, and some non-English text.
Known scanner bypass classes. See the methodology and limitations page.

Sources

Repository: https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
Raw scan result: skills-citation-management-scan.json
Badge for your README: ![skillscan.io](https://skillscan.io/badge/k-dense-ai-citation-management.svg)
Request a re-scan

Second scanner: NVIDIA SkillSpector

What this skill does

Findings

What is in the package

External hosts referenced

Environment variables referenced

What we checked

What we did not check

Sources

Related skills