What is the Citation File Format?
The Citation File Format lets you provide citation information for software by creating a CITATION.cff file in your source code
repository. A CITATION.cff file is a plaintext file (using the YAML format) that is easy to read by both humans and machines. Using a list of properties, you can provide all
information needed to cite your software in a concise and structured way.
Why do you need a CITATION.cff file?
Description
Correctly citing a paper is easy. All the necessary information (the metadata) can be found on the title page of the paper or the website of the publisher. You can often download this information in various ready-to-use formats.
Software has no title page, however. The relevant information to cite software is often less obvious and harder to find. What is the official name of the software? What is the appropriate set of people that should be cited as authors? What version of the software should be cited? Is there a paper about the software that should be cited instead? If you want people to cite your research software, you will need to help them do it properly.
By adding a CITATION.cff file in your source code repository, you can provide all relevant citation information in a concise and structured way. Not only does this give your users all the right
information to cite your software correctly, but is also enables other tools and services, such as GitHub,
Zenodo and Zotero, to re-use the citation
metadata you provide.
But how do you create a CITATION.cff file?
Considerations
- You use a code repository such as GitHub as your software repository
- You are knowledgeable about the metadata you want to describe. You can have a look at the Citation File Format Guide to get an overview of all supported metadata. Keep in mind that you do not have to include all fields, just the ones you know.
Solutions
- Create a
CITATION.cfffile by either:- using the CFFinit online tool, which will help you create a valid
CITATION.cfffile which you can download. You can also use the CFFinit tool to update an existingCITATION.cfffile by pasting its contents in the tool’s online form, updating the fields and saving it. - manually copying and pasting the example snippet and adapting it to your needs. You can then use cffconvert to validate your
CITATION.cfffile.
- using the CFFinit online tool, which will help you create a valid
- Once you have created a correct
CITATION.cfffile, you can add it to the root directory of your source code repository.
A more detailed description on how to create CITATION.cff files can be found on the Turing Way. You can find a list of
additional tools to create, validate and convert CITATION.cff files in the CFF GitHub Repository.
Related pages
Your tasks
What is CodeMeta and how to write a CodeMeta file for your software
Tools and resources on this page
| Tool or resource | Description | Related pages | Registry |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub | GitHub is a platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control. GitHub provides access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. | Writing a CodeMeta file Creating a 'Read the D... Releasing code Software documentation Version control Digital Software Ident... |
Editor
Netherlands eScience Center
How to cite this page
Jason Maassen, "Creating a CITATION.cff file". everse.software. http://everse.software/RSQKit/cff .