Search Lancet articles offline and analyze author impact, institutional networks, and editorial trends — powered by the free OpenAlex scholarly graph.
The Lancet CLI gives researchers and institutions offline access to The Lancet family of journals via OpenAlex. Beyond search and fetch, it ranks researchers by citation impact within a specialty (rank-authors), maps institutional co-authorship networks (mesh), tracks which institutions are publishing more over time (affiliation-growth), and detects how a journal's editorial focus shifts (drift) — insights impossible from single API queries or paywalled tools.
Learn more at The Lancet.
Quick Start
# Verify the CLI is working and OpenAlex is reachable (no auth required)
thelancet-pp-cli doctor --dry-run
# Find recent Lancet articles on a research topic (scoped to Lancet journals by default)
thelancet-pp-cli works search --search 'CRISPR gene therapy' --per-page 5
# Build the local database from OpenAlex so the analytics commands below can run offline
thelancet-pp-cli refresh --journal lancet
# Rank the most-cited authors in a specific Lancet journal
thelancet-pp-cli rank-authors --journal lancet-oncology --json
# See how the journal's editorial focus has shifted between two periods
thelancet-pp-cli drift --journal lancet-oncology --window1 2018:2020 --window2 2023:2024
Unique Features
These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.
Local data compounds
-
rank-authors — Rank researchers at your institution by citation impact within a specific Lancet journal or topic.
Grant managers and department heads use this to identify who is leading at your institution in a specific field; agents can use it to find high-impact collaborators.
thelancet-pp-cli rank-authors --institution 'Harvard' --journal lancet-oncology --json
-
mesh — Find researchers at your institution who co-author Lancet papers and quantify how their work connects.
Librarians and research directors use this to uncover collaboration opportunities and map how an institution's researchers connect through Lancet.
thelancet-pp-cli mesh --org 'Stanford University' --json
-
affiliation-growth — Track institutions gaining publication velocity in Lancet journals; identify rising research centers.
Strategy teams track this to understand competitive research landscapes and identify emerging partner institutions.
thelancet-pp-cli affiliation-growth --journal lancet-neurology --years 5 --json
-
visibility-gap — Find authors whose citation impact is out of step with the prestige of the Lancet journals they publish in.
Grant managers and research directors use this to identify under-recognized talent for promotion or collaboration.
thelancet-pp-cli visibility-gap --institution 'Oxford' --json
Offline analysis
-
drift — Compare how a journal's topic distribution shifts between two time windows; spot emerging and fading specialties.
Research strategists use this to align their work with journal editorial priorities and detect when journal scope shifts.
thelancet-pp-cli drift --journal lancet-oncology --window1 2018:2020 --window2 2023:2024 --json
-
curate — Auto-generate ranked reading lists for a topic, sorted by date/citations/relevance, exportable as Markdown or BibTeX.
Librarians and researchers use this to quickly assemble authoritative reading lists without manual screening.
thelancet-pp-cli curate --topic 'gene therapy' --sort citations --output bibtex
Recipes
Build a topic reading list for a literature review
thelancet-pp-cli curate --topic 'machine learning diagnosis' --sort citations --output bibtex > review.bib
Generate a citation-ranked, BibTeX-exportable reading list on a topic across Lancet journals in one command.
Narrow a deeply nested works response for an agent
thelancet-pp-cli works search --search 'immunotherapy' --per-page 10 --agent --select results.title,results.cited_by_count,results.authorships.author.display_name
OpenAlex works are large and deeply nested; pair --agent with dotted --select paths to return only the fields you need and save context.
Spot editorial drift in a specialty journal
thelancet-pp-cli drift --journal lancet-oncology --window1 2018:2020 --window2 2023:2024 --top-n 15
Compare topic distributions across two multi-year windows to see which specialties the journal now publishes more or less of.
Local JSON API
The serve command exposes the analytics engine as a local read-only JSON API — useful for the Lancet web portal or any local tool that prefers HTTP over shelling out to the CLI:
# Default: loopback only
thelancet-pp-cli serve
# Custom port (keep it on 127.0.0.1)
thelancet-pp-cli serve --listen 127.0.0.1:9090
Two endpoints, mirroring the CLI commands' parameters, defaults, and JSON shapes:
| Endpoint | Mirrors | Query params |
|---|
GET /affiliations | affiliation-growth | journal (slug, default all), years (default 5), threshold (default 2), limit (default 25) |
GET /authors | rank-authors | journal, institution (substring), limit (default 25) |
curl 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/affiliations?journal=lancet-neurology&years=5'
curl 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/authors?institution=Oxford&limit=10'
Responses are the same JSON arrays the commands emit with --json. Invalid parameters return 400 with {"error": "..."}; engine failures return 500 with a generic structured error (no internal detail). Use --db to point at a non-default database path; stop with Ctrl+C (graceful shutdown).
Security: binds to loopback (127.0.0.1:8080) by default, serves only read queries against the local mirror, and has no authentication — do not expose it on a public interface.
Usage
Run thelancet-pp-cli --help for the full command reference and flag list.
Commands
authors
Search and retrieve authors
thelancet-pp-cli authors get - Get a single author by OpenAlex IDthelancet-pp-cli authors search - Search authors
sources
Journal (source) metadata
thelancet-pp-cli sources <id> - Get a journal (source) by ISSN or OpenAlex ID
works
Search and retrieve Lancet articles
thelancet-pp-cli works get - Get a single article by OpenAlex ID or DOIthelancet-pp-cli works search - Search Lancet articles (works)
Output Formats
# Human-readable table (default in terminal, JSON when piped)
thelancet-pp-cli authors get mock-value
# JSON for scripting and agents
thelancet-pp-cli authors get mock-value --json
# Filter to specific fields
thelancet-pp-cli authors get mock-value --json --select id,name,status
# Dry run — show the request without sending
thelancet-pp-cli authors get mock-value --dry-run
# Agent mode — JSON + compact + no prompts in one flag
thelancet-pp-cli authors get mock-value --agent
Agent Usage
This CLI is designed for AI agent consumption:
- Non-interactive - never prompts, every input is a flag
- Pipeable -
--json output to stdout, errors to stderr
- Filterable -
--select id,name returns only fields you need
- Previewable -
--dry-run shows the request without sending
- Read-only by default - this CLI does not create, update, delete, publish, send, or mutate remote resources
- Offline-friendly - sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
- Agent-safe by default - no colors or formatting unless
--human-friendly is set
Exit codes: 0 success, 2 usage error, 3 not found, 5 API error, 7 rate limited, 10 config error.
Health Check
thelancet-pp-cli doctor
Verifies configuration and connectivity to the API.
Configuration
Config file: ~/.config/lancet-via-openalex-pp-cli/config.toml
Static request headers can be configured under headers; per-command header overrides take precedence.
Troubleshooting
Not found errors (exit code 3)
- Check the resource ID is correct
- Run the
list command to see available items
API-specific
- analytics command says 'no local mirror' — Run refresh first: thelancet-pp-cli refresh --journal lancet (analytics read the local OpenAlex-derived store)
- rank-authors or mesh returns empty for an institution — Institution names match OpenAlex display names; try a distinctive substring like 'Oxford' rather than a full legal name or acronym
- OpenAlex returns 429 (rate limited) — OpenAlex allows ~10 req/s; lower --rate-limit or set a contact email via OPENALEX_MAILTO to join the polite pool
Sources & Inspiration
This CLI was built by studying these projects and resources:
Generated by CLI Printing Press