CNKI Watch

Use this skill when the user wants CNKI results in either of these modes:

• manual journal query: return papers from a named journal,
• manual topic query: return CNKI papers related to a research topic,
• journal subscription: periodically push new papers from a named journal,
• topic subscription: periodically push new papers for a research topic.

When to use

• The user gives a journal name and wants a one-off CNKI query.
• The user gives a research topic and wants titles plus source metadata.
• The user wants a recurring CNKI watch delivered back into OpenClaw.

Preconditions

• The skill ships as a normal npm project with a root package.json and declared dependencies.
• Preferred runtime is still the OpenClaw gateway container, but local development runs are supported on Windows/macOS/Linux with Node.js 22+.
• On local runs, the script auto-installs missing JavaScript dependencies from package.json on first use. Browser discovery supports Playwright-managed Chromium plus common Chrome/Edge installs. No custom NODE_PATH is required.
• Prefer CNKI_COOKIE. CNKI_USERNAME plus CNKI_PASSWORD is a fallback path for establishing a CNKI login session.
• If CNKI shows captcha, slider verification, or another human-check page, stop and ask for a fresh CNKI_COOKIE or a manually refreshed session. Do not invent alternative scraping logic in the model.
• Treat OpenClaw runtime behavior as authoritative. The docs define the public contract; do not optimize for quick_validate.py quirks at the expense of runtime compatibility.

Reference files:

• references/config.md
• references/schedule.md
• references/commands.md

Canonical entrypoint

Always use the bundled script instead of ad hoc CNKI browsing:

node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs <command> [flags]

For local development outside OpenClaw:

cd {baseDir}
npm install
node scripts/cnki-watch.mjs --help
npx cnki-watch query-topic --topic "人工智能" --json

Core commands

One-off journal lookup

node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs query-journal --journal "计算机学报" --json

One-off topic lookup

node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs query-topic --topic "大模型安全" --json

Create a journal subscription

node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs subscribe-journal --journal "计算机学报" --schedule "daily@09:00" --json

Create a topic subscription

node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs subscribe-topic --topic "大模型安全" --schedule "weekly@mon@09:00" --json

List and remove subscriptions

node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs list-subscriptions --json
node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs unsubscribe --id "<subscription-id>" --json
node {baseDir}/scripts/cnki-watch.mjs run-subscription --id "<subscription-id>" --json

Workflow

1. Decide whether the user wants a manual query or a subscription.
2. Preserve the journal name or topic text exactly unless the user explicitly asks to normalize it.
3. Use query-journal for a journal lookup and query-topic for a topic lookup.
4. Use subscribe-journal or subscribe-topic for recurring pushes. If the user does not supply a schedule, use the configured defaultSchedule.
5. Respect skill config for browserProfile, timezone, defaultSchedule, maxManualResults, and maxPushResults.
6. After creating, listing, running, or removing a subscription, report the subscription id, schedule, timezone, and status returned by the script.

Delivery rules

• Subscription jobs run as isolated cron turns with no automatic announce delivery.
• The script is responsible for posting new findings back to the main OpenClaw chat, typically through chat.inject.
• Manual queries return metadata to the current turn and do not create subscription state.
• Subscription runs should push only new items and stay silent when there is no delta.
• Return metadata and CNKI links only. Do not promise PDFs, full text, or other copyrighted payloads.

Failure handling

• If the script reports missing browser dependencies or an unusable runtime, fix the OpenClaw runtime and retry.
• If CNKI blocks the session with captcha or another verification flow, stop and ask for a fresh CNKI_COOKIE or a manually refreshed CNKI session.
• If a journal lookup returns weak matches, verify the exact journal name and tell the user that source filtering may need the precise CNKI source string.
• If credentials are missing, ask the user to populate CNKI_COOKIE, or CNKI_USERNAME plus CNKI_PASSWORD, in the skill env config before retrying.