# Build brief — a focused alternative to Scite

> **Verdict:** Not faithfully · **Buildability:** 18/100 · **Category:** AI Search
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/scite-ai
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Scite. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Scite** — Smart Citations that show whether a paper's citations support, contrast or merely mention its claims. It currently costs $20/mo.

The AI classification of a citation as supporting, contrasting or mentioning is a solvable NLP task, but the product's real value is the licensed full-text corpus across 40+ publishers plus preprint servers, kept current and cross-referenced at scale. No individual or small team can replicate that data-access moat; a DIY build only works on open-access papers, which is a small fraction of the literature that matters for a lot of fields.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Scite that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

Pull open-access full text (arXiv, PubMed Central, bioRxiv) for a paper's cited works, then use an LLM to classify each citing sentence as supporting, contrasting or neutral.

- Ground answers in sources you select and cite them visibly.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Access to open-access full-text sources (arXiv, PMC, bioRxiv).

### Data and integrations

- OpenAI/Anthropic API key.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build me an open-access citation-context checker as a Next.js app.
Stack: Next.js + TypeScript, SQLite via better-sqlite3, Tailwind. No auth, single user, localhost only.
Core loop:
1. A search box where I paste a DOI or arXiv ID; fetch its metadata and reference list via the free Semantic Scholar API (no key needed).
2. For each citing paper available as open-access full text (via arXiv or PubMed Central APIs), pull the sentence(s) around the citation.
3. Send each citation sentence to the Anthropic API (key from .env) with a fixed prompt asking it to classify the citation as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning, with a one-line reason.
4. Show results in a table: citing paper, classification, and the quoted sentence, filterable by classification.
Out of scope: paywalled-publisher content, browser extension, manuscript reference-check upload, accounts, alerts.
Include a README noting this only works for open-access papers and citing papers, unlike a licensed full-text database.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Coverage of paywalled publishers (Wiley, Cambridge, Wolters Kluwer, etc.).
- Pre-built citation database spanning hundreds of millions of citation statements.
- Retraction/correction flags sourced from Crossref and PubMed.
- Browser extension overlay on Google Scholar and journal pages.
- Reference-check tool for uploaded manuscripts.

## What you still own after launch

- Secure credentials, rotate secrets, and handle provider rate limits.
- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.

## Risk

**Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No reviewed project implementation is linked yet.

## Existing alternatives

Before building, compare these checked options:

- [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org) — Free academic search engine with citation graphs and TLDR summaries, though without support/contrast classification
- [CORE](https://core.ac.uk) — Free aggregator of over 200 million open-access research papers with full-text search

## Prior art

Working open-source software you can read, fork, or borrow from before starting:

- [Semantic Scholar API](https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/api) — free API with citation graphs and some citation-intent classification for open-access papers

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