Resolve citation key collisions on import

paper-notes · Cursor · branch fix/bibtex · claude-opus-5 · cwd /home/user/code/paper-notes · id 40f17e8e-b4cc-0941-3154-29623d27c8b8 · 2026-07-17 17:18 · 2 msgs · 13 tools · 1 min read · updated 7 weeks ago

Two papers by the same author in the same year overwrote each other.

tools: Read, Edit, Bash
← paper-notes Download .md
Tool calls
Read Read: 8 calls (42.1%) 8 Bash Bash: 7 calls (36.8%) 7 Edit Edit: 4 calls (21.1%) 4
Token usage10.9K total
Input9.2K
Cache creation0
Cache read0
Output1.8K
Cache hit ratio0%· cold cache

Two papers by the same author in the same year overwrote each other.

Conversation

Turn 1 — User

Importing two papers by the same author from the same year silently keeps one.

Turn 2 — Assistant

Keys were author plus year, so a collision overwrote. A disambiguating suffix is now appended in a stable order, and the importer reports every collision it resolved rather than resolving it quietly.

Existing keys are left alone so citations already written do not shift.

Turn 3 — User

What if the same paper is imported twice?

Turn 4 — Assistant

That is detected by content rather than key and skipped as a duplicate, which is different from a collision between two genuinely distinct papers.

Subjects

  • [[Markdown]]
  • [[Data Import]]
  • [[Validation]]

Keyboard shortcuts

⌘K / Ctrl+KOpen command palette
/Focus search
g hGo to home
g pGo to projects
g sGo to sessions
j / kNext / prev row (tables)
?Show this help
EscClose dialogs

Structured queries

Mix key:value filters with free text in the palette:

type:sessionOnly session pages
project:llm-wikiFilter by project name (substring)
model:claudeFilter by model name (substring)
date:>2026-03-01Sessions after a date
date:<2026-04-01Sessions before a date
tags:rustPages mentioning a tag/topic
sort:dateSort results by date (newest first)

Example: type:session project:llm-wiki date:>2026-04 sort:date