cffconvert

Command line program to validate and convert CITATION.cff files.

Supported input versions of the Citation File Format

Citation File Format schema version	Link to Zenodo release
1.3.0	unreleased
1.2.0
1.1.0
1.0.3
1.0.2
1.0.1

Supported output formats

1. APA-like plaintext
2. BibTeX
3. CodeMeta
4. EndNote
5. RIS
6. schema.org JSON
7. Zenodo JSON

cffconvert does not support converting items from references or preferred-citation keys at the moment. The contact key is currently validation-only. license-url is preserved in schema.org and CodeMeta output, but is validation-only for the other formats. Zenodo output supports one SPDX license per record and raises an error when a CFF file specifies multiple licenses.

Installing

Install the official interim source distribution from the Git tag attached to a published GitHub Release. The first planned concrete example is v2026.08.

python3 -m pip install --user git+https://github.com/scicodes/cffconvert.git@<release-tag>

Replace <release-tag> with the published GitHub Release tag, for example v2026.08. Untagged main is development-only. Do not use PyPI for this fork; the cffconvert package name is already in use there. Ensure that the user space directory ~/.local/bin/ is on the PATH.

which cffconvert

should now return the location of the program.

To install a specific branch, tag, or commit:

python3 -m pip install --user git+https://github.com/scicodes/cffconvert.git@<ref>

Replace <ref> with a branch name, tag, or commit SHA. For the official interim source distribution, use the published release tag.

For a local development install, clone the repository and install in editable mode:

git clone https://github.com/scicodes/cffconvert.git
cd cffconvert
python3 -m pip install --user --editable .[dev,testing]

See docs/alternative-install-options.md for alternative install options.

Docker

cffconvert will be available on GHCR as ghcr.io/scicodes/cffconvert:<release-tag> after the GitHub Release for that tag is published. For the first planned example release, that tag is v2026.08. Replace <release-tag> with the published GitHub Release tag. Legacy Docker Hub images still exist at https://hub.docker.com/r/citationcff/cffconvert.

Example usage:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/work -w /work ghcr.io/scicodes/cffconvert:<release-tag> --validate
docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/work -w /work ghcr.io/scicodes/cffconvert:<release-tag> --version
docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/work -w /work ghcr.io/scicodes/cffconvert:<release-tag> --help
# etc

pre-commit hook

cffconvert is also available as a pre-commit hook. Add the following to your .pre-commit-config.yaml file to start validating your CITATION.cff automatically whenever you issue a git commit:

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/SciCodes/cffconvert
    rev: v2026.08
    hooks:
      - id: validate-cff

Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, testing, and release procedures.

Command line interface

See cffconvert's options:

cffconvert --help

Shows:

Usage: cffconvert [OPTIONS]

  Command line program to validate and convert CITATION.cff files.

Options:
  -i, --infile PATH               Path to the CITATION.cff input file. If this
                                  option is omitted, './CITATION.cff' is used.
  -o, --outfile PATH              Path to the output file.
  -f, --format [apalike|bibtex|cff|codemeta|endnote|ris|schema.org|zenodo]
                                  Output format.
  -u, --url TEXT                  URL to the CITATION.cff input file.
  -h, --help                      Show help and exit.
  --show-trace                    Show error trace.
  --validate                      Validate the CITATION.cff file and exit.
  --version                       Print version and exit.
  --verbose                       Control output verbosity.

  If this program is useful to you, consider giving it a star on GitHub:
  https://github.com/SciCodes/cffconvert

Example usage

Validating a local CITATION.cff file

cffconvert --validate
cffconvert --validate -i CITATION.cff
cffconvert --validate -i ${PWD}/CITATION.cff
cffconvert --validate -i ../some-other-dir/CITATION.cff

Validating a remote CITATION.cff file

cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/commit/<sha>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/tree/<sha>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/tree/<tag>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/tree/<branch>

Converting metadata to other formats

If there is a valid CITATION.cff file in the current directory, you can convert to various other formats and print the result on standard out with:

cffconvert -f bibtex
cffconvert -f codemeta
cffconvert -f endnote
cffconvert -f ris
cffconvert -f schema.org
cffconvert -f zenodo
cffconvert -f apalike

Writing to a file

# with i/o redirection:
cffconvert -f bibtex > bibtex.bib
cffconvert -f zenodo > .zenodo.json
cffconvert -f endnote > ${PWD}/endnote.enw
# etc

# without i/o redirection
cffconvert -f bibtex -o bibtex.bib
cffconvert -f zenodo -o .zenodo.json
cffconvert -f endnote -o ${PWD}/endnote.enw
# etc