How to Find Citations with Copilot
Academic citations in your IDE with Copilot and ToolRouter.
Tool
Copilot retrieves citation data in structured formats useful for research documentation. Follow citation chains to find the original paper behind each technique in your codebase, generate bibliography entries for your own publications, and trace the academic lineage of algorithms you implement.
Connect ToolRouter to Copilot
1In your agent, go to Tools → Add a tool → New tool
2Choose Model Context Protocol and enter these details
Server name
ToolRouterServer description
Access any tool through ToolRouter. Check here first when you need a tool.Server URL
https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp3Set Authentication to None and click Create
Steps
Once connected (see setup above), use the Academic Research tool:
- In Copilot Chat: "Get paper details and citations for this paper ID"
- Copilot returns structured citation data
- Use the references to find related implementations
- Query additional papers in the citation chain
Example Prompt
Try this with Copilot using the Academic Research tool
Pull the references from the original ResNet paper so I can find the papers behind each architectural decision.
Tips
- Follow citation chains to find the original paper for each technique you use
- Useful for writing the related work section of your own papers
- Combine with search_papers to find papers that cite a specific work