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How to check references, repeated numbers, and hidden PDF text with Absent Author

Run three helper scripts that report candidates for references, numbers, and hidden text.

  • Research
  • Intermediate
  • 30 minutes
  • From the README
  • Any agent

Who it is forAn author or reviewer with a bibliography, a LaTeX source, and a PDF who needs the slow verification work done.

The problemChecking every author in every reference and every restated number by hand is slow, and hidden or remapped PDF text is hard to see.

The outcomeCandidate lists for reference author checks, numbers stated with different values, and hidden or remapped text, each to be checked by a person.

What you need first

  • git and a shell to clone the repo
  • Python 3.9 or newer for tools/slop_lint.py (no dependencies)
  • Claude Code, Codex, or another agent that reads SKILL.md for the two skills
  • pymupdf (pip install pymupdf) for tools/pdf_hidden_text.py
  • Optional: poppler-utils and tesseract for the OCR check on remapped text

Steps

  1. Clone the repo with git clone https://github.com/THUROI0787/absent-author.git && cd absent-author.
  2. Run python tools/ref_verify.py refs.bib --sample 5 --mailto [email protected] on your bibliography.
  3. Run python tools/number_ledger.py paper/main.tex on your LaTeX source.
  4. Run pip install pymupdf and then python tools/pdf_hidden_text.py paper.pdf on the PDF.
  5. Open each candidate at its location and decide whether it is a real problem.

Prompt for your agent

In the absent-author repo, run tools/ref_verify.py on <refs.bib>, tools/number_ledger.py on <main.tex>, and tools/pdf_hidden_text.py on <paper.pdf>. List every candidate with its source location. Verify each candidate by reading the cited source yourself, since the tools report candidates, not verdicts.

Caveat. The helpers report candidates for a person to read and never verdicts, and the PDF check's OCR step needs optional system tools that the README lists separately.

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