ArxivPaperTool

Description

The ArxivPaperTool queries the arXiv API for academic papers and returns compact, readable results. It can also optionally download PDFs to disk.

Installation

This tool has no special installation beyond crewai-tools.

uv add crewai-tools

No API key is required. This tool uses the public arXiv Atom API.

Steps to Get Started

1. Initialize the tool.
2. Provide a search_query (e.g., "transformer neural network").
3. Optionally set max_results (1–100) and enable PDF downloads in the constructor.

Example

from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew
from crewai_tools import ArxivPaperTool

tool = ArxivPaperTool(
    download_pdfs=False,
    save_dir="./arxiv_pdfs",
    use_title_as_filename=True,
)

agent = Agent(
    role="Researcher",
    goal="Find relevant arXiv papers",
    backstory="Expert at literature discovery",
    tools=[tool],
    verbose=True,
)

task = Task(
    description="Search arXiv for 'transformer neural network' and list top 5 results.",
    expected_output="A concise list of 5 relevant papers with titles, links, and summaries.",
    agent=agent,
)

crew = Crew(agents=[agent], tasks=[task])
result = crew.kickoff()

Direct usage (without Agent)

from crewai_tools import ArxivPaperTool

tool = ArxivPaperTool(
    download_pdfs=True, 
    save_dir="./arxiv_pdfs",
)
print(tool.run(search_query="mixture of experts", max_results=3))

Parameters

Initialization Parameters

• download_pdfs (bool, default False): Whether to download PDFs.
• save_dir (str, default ./arxiv_pdfs): Directory to save PDFs.
• use_title_as_filename (bool, default False): Use paper titles for filenames.

Run Parameters

• search_query (str, required): The arXiv search query.
• max_results (int, default 5, range 1–100): Number of results.

Output format

The tool returns a human‑readable list of papers with:

• Title
• Link (abs page)
• Snippet/summary (truncated)

When download_pdfs=True, PDFs are saved to disk and the summary mentions saved files.

Usage Notes

• The tool returns formatted text with key metadata and links.
• When download_pdfs=True, PDFs will be stored in save_dir.

Troubleshooting

• If you receive a network timeout, re‑try or reduce max_results.
• Invalid XML errors indicate an arXiv response parse issue; try a simpler query.
• File system errors (e.g., permission denied) may occur when saving PDFs; ensure save_dir is writable.

Related links

• arXiv API docs: https://info.arxiv.org/help/api/index.html

Error Handling

• Network issues, invalid XML, and OS errors are handled with informative messages.