RL004: HasCitation

Overview

Property Value
ID RL004
Name HasCitation
Group release
Severity NOTE

Description

Checks for the presence of a CITATION.cff file in the package root directory.

CITATION.cff is a standard format for software citation metadata that makes it easy for others to cite your software correctly.

What it checks

The check looks for any of these files:

  • CITATION.cff
  • CITATION.bib
  • citation.cff

Why it matters

  • Academic credit - Ensures proper attribution for your work
  • Reproducibility - Helps researchers reference specific versions
  • Discoverability - GitHub automatically detects CITATION.cff
  • pyOpenSci/JOSS - Recommended for pyOpenSci and required for JOSS

How to fix

Create a CITATION.cff file in your repository root:

cff-version: 1.2.0
message: "If you use this software, please cite it as below."
type: software
title: "My Package"
version: 1.0.0
date-released: 2024-01-15
url: "https://github.com/username/my-package"
repository-code: "https://github.com/username/my-package"
license: MIT
authors:
  - family-names: "Doe"
    given-names: "Jane"
    orcid: "https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000"
    affiliation: "University Name"
keywords:
  - python
  - data-science
abstract: "A brief description of what your software does."

Using cffinit

You can use the cffinit web tool to generate a CITATION.cff file interactively.

GitHub integration

When you add a CITATION.cff file, GitHub will:

  1. Display a “Cite this repository” button
  2. Show the citation in APA and BibTeX formats
  3. Help others cite your work correctly

Configuration

Skip this check

[tool.pycmdcheck]
skip = ["RL004"]

CLI

pycmdcheck --skip RL004