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API Key Guide

This page explains which provider credentials ComProScanner can use, what each one is used for, and how to generate or obtain them.

Overview

ComProScanner can work with three groups of external providers:

Which credentials do you actually need?

Provider group Requirement level
Publisher/content providers for article access Optional for manual or local workflows, but required for automated article retrieval.
LLM providers for extraction, vision models and RAG At least one required for extraction, vision models and RAG workflows. However, default models are different for extraction/RAG and vision-language models.
Default embedding provider for vector database creation Required unless you configure a custom embedding provider.

Use only the providers relevant to your workflow. You do not need every key.

Publisher Providers

Elsevier / Scopus

Environment variable: SCOPUS_API_KEY

Used for:

  • Scopus-based metadata retrieval
  • Elsevier article retrieval in XML format

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Elsevier developer account.
  2. Open the API key management area.
  3. Create a key for Scopus or content APIs.
  4. Copy the generated key into your .env file as SCOPUS_API_KEY.
SCOPUS_API_KEY=your_scopus_api_key

ScienceDirect Institutional Token

Environment variable: SCIENCEDIRECT_INSTTOKEN

Optional. Only required when accessing subscription-based Elsevier full-text articles and figures from outside the university campus network (i.e., for remote/off-campus access).

Used for:

  • Remote off-campus access to Elsevier full-text article retrieval
  • Downloading subscription-gated figures from ScienceDirect when working outside the campus network

How to get it:

  1. Contact your institution's library or IT/research computing team and ask for the ScienceDirect Institutional Token (insttoken).
  2. Elsevier issues this token per institution; individual researchers cannot generate it directly.
  3. Once obtained, copy it into your .env file as SCIENCEDIRECT_INSTTOKEN.
SCIENCEDIRECT_INSTTOKEN=your_sciencedirect_insttoken

Springer Nature Open Access API

Environment variable: SPRINGER_OPENACCESS_API_KEY

Used for:

  • Springer Open Access article retrieval in XML format

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Springer Nature account.
  2. Fill up the form to request an Open Access API key at https://dev.springernature.com/register/.
  3. Get the Open Access API key from the Springer Nature API management page.
  4. Copy the key into your .env file.
SPRINGER_OPENACCESS_API_KEY=your_springer_openaccess_api_key

Springer Nature TDM API

Environment variable: SPRINGER_TDM_API_KEY

Used for:

  • Springer subscription article retrieval in XML format

How to get it:

  1. Subscribe to the Springer Nature TDM service via https://dev.springernature.com/subscription/ and select the appropriate access level based on your institution and use case.
  2. Copy the issued TDM key or token into your .env file.
SPRINGER_TDM_API_KEY=your_springer_tdm_api_key

Wiley TDM API

Environment variable: WILEY_API_KEY

Used for:

  • Wiley full-text article download as PDF

How to get it:

  1. Create your Wiley account.
  2. Login to your Wiley account at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/library-info/resources/text-and-datamining under the "Get a Text and Data Mining Token" section.
  3. Accept the terms and conditions to generate your API token.
  4. Copy the API token into your .env file.
WILEY_API_KEY=your_wiley_api_key

IOP Publishing

Environment variable: IOP_papers_path (not an API key but a required path variable for processing IOP Science XML files)

Used for:

  • Local processing of IOP Science XML files downloaded in bulk

How to get it:

  1. Email contentsupport@ioppublishing.org to request bulk access to the IOP Science XML files, typically through SFTP as IOP Publishing does not provide direct API access for bulk downloads.
  2. Once you have access, download the XML files to a local directory.
  3. Set IOP_papers_path to the absolute local folder path containing all the downloaded files.
IOP_papers_path=/absolute/path/to/iop_papers

LLM Providers

These providers can be used for extraction models, RAG chat models, and vision-language models where supported by your configuration.

OpenAI

Environment variable: OPENAI_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: openai/... or OpenAI model names directly

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your OpenAI account.
  2. Open the API keys section.
  3. Create a new secret key.
  4. Store it in .env.
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key

Google Gemini

Environment variable: GEMINI_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: gemini/...

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Google AI Studio account.
  2. Generate an API key from the Gemini API key page.
  3. Store it in .env as GEMINI_API_KEY.
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key

Anthropic

Environment variable: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: anthropic/...

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Anthropic Console account.
  2. Create a new API key from the Anthropic keys page.
  3. Store it in .env.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_anthropic_api_key

DeepSeek

Environment variable: DEEPSEEK_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: deepseek/...

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your DeepSeek platform account.
  2. Generate an API key from the DeepSeek API keys page.
  3. Store it in .env.
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=your_deepseek_api_key

OpenRouter

Environment variable: OPENROUTER_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: openrouter/...

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your OpenRouter account.
  2. Generate an API key from the OpenRouter keys page.
  3. Store it in .env.
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your_openrouter_api_key

Together AI

Environment variable: TOGETHER_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: together/...

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Together AI account.
  2. Generate an API key from the Together AI API keys page.
  3. Store it in .env.
TOGETHER_API_KEY=your_together_api_key

Cohere

Environment variable: COHERE_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: cohere/...

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Cohere account.
  2. Create an API key from the Cohere API keys page.
  3. Store it in .env.
COHERE_API_KEY=your_cohere_api_key

Fireworks AI

Environment variable: FIREWORKS_API_KEY

Typical model prefixes: fireworks/...

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Fireworks AI account.
  2. Generate an API key from the Fireworks AI API keys page.
  3. Store it in .env.
FIREWORKS_API_KEY=your_fireworks_api_key

Ollama

Environment variable: none required

Used for:

  • Local model inference

How to set it up:

  1. Install Ollama from the main Ollama website.
  2. Pull the model you want to use by following the Ollama library and setup docs.
  3. Set base_url or rag_base_url if needed, such as http://localhost:11434.

Default Embedding Provider

Hugging Face

Environment variable: HF_TOKEN

Optional. Only required for downloading gated or private Hugging Face models. Public models work without a token.

Used for:

  • Accessing gated or private Hugging Face models
  • Rate-limited API access

How to get it:

  1. Create or sign in to your Hugging Face account.
  2. Open the access tokens page.
  3. Create a new token with the required permissions.
  4. Store it in .env.
HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token

Use the subset you need:

# Publisher providers
SCOPUS_API_KEY=your_scopus_api_key
SCIENCEDIRECT_INSTTOKEN=your_sciencedirect_insttoken  # optional, for off-campus access
SPRINGER_OPENACCESS_API_KEY=your_springer_openaccess_api_key
SPRINGER_TDM_API_KEY=your_springer_tdm_api_key
WILEY_API_KEY=your_wiley_api_key
IOP_papers_path=/absolute/path/to/iop_papers

# LLM providers
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_anthropic_api_key
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=your_deepseek_api_key
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your_openrouter_api_key
TOGETHER_API_KEY=your_together_api_key
COHERE_API_KEY=your_cohere_api_key
FIREWORKS_API_KEY=your_fireworks_api_key

# Model and embedding access
HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token

Notes

  • Keep all keys in your local .env file and never commit them to version control.
  • For most users, the minimum setup is one publisher source plus one LLM provider.
  • If you use Gemini models, use GEMINI_API_KEY.
  • If you use the default embedding setup, make sure HF_TOKEN is available.