Command line

Everything the picker does, the ibis command does too, from the same engine.

The examples run against sample.bib, three invented references, and show exactly what Ibis prints.

@terminal

Search and cite from a terminal

$ ibis search lantern --file sample.bib
vale2024lanterns  Mira Vale 2024  Lantern gardens and the rhythm of imaginary c…

$ ibis cite vale2024lanterns --locator "p. 12" fen2023clouds --format apa --file sample.bib
(Fen, 2023; Vale, 2024, p. 12)

$ ibis cite smith2019imaginary --file sample.bib
ibis: no reference has the key 'smith2019imaginary'
  Try: ibis search smith2019imaginary --file sample.bib

$ ibis search lantern --file sample.bib --keys
vale2024lanterns

Ibis prints to standard output and errors to standard error; it never copies by itself. Pipe it to pbcopy, clip or wl-copy to copy.

@shorthand

Type it the fast way nightly

In the picker, put the details right in the search: a word before the reference, the reference, then a page.

Lantern gardens follow imaginary cities [@fen2023clouds, chap. 2]⁠.

Lantern gardens follow imaginary cities [@reed2025maps, pp. 12–14]⁠.

Lantern gardens follow imaginary cities [see @vale2024lanterns, p. 33]⁠.

Lantern gardens follow imaginary cities [see @vale2024lanterns, p. 417]⁠.

Try

@agents

Your library, in your AI assistant

Find references and format citations from the libraries you choose.

Try asking

“Find the lantern gardens paper in my library and cite it as Pandoc.”

Paste into your assistant

Set up Ibis for me: https://ibiscite.org/setup

Install ibis first · Setup guide

Read-only access to the libraries you choose; your AI provider’s privacy policy applies.

@install

Install the command

Homebrew on Mac or Linux:

brew install ibiscite/tap/ibis

On Windows, or without Homebrew, download the command for your system from the release page. Command line guide.