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The Supercharged Citation Picker supports picking citations from two BibTeX libraries at the same time. This is useful for maintaining a shared group library alongside a personal one, or for keeping a project-specific .bib file separate from your main collection.

Setup

Set the secondary_library_path workflow variable to the full path of your second .bib file (e.g., ~/Documents/project-references.bib). The secondary library path is checked for existence at load time. If the file does not exist at the specified path, it is silently skipped — no error is shown and the picker continues to work normally with the primary library.

Visual Indicator

Entries from the second library are prefixed with a 2️⃣ icon in the citation picker list, making it easy to distinguish their origin at a glance. Entries from the primary library have no such prefix.

How the Buffer Works

When both libraries are configured, the workflow parses and merges them into a single picker list:
  • Primary library entries appear first, in reverse order (most recently added entries rise to the top).
  • Secondary library entries follow, also in reverse order.
All search, filtering, and citation-insertion features work identically across both libraries.

Limitations

Some management actions are restricted to the primary library:
FeaturePrimary librarySecondary library
⇧↵ — Reveal entry in app❌ Not supported
⌘fn↵ — Delete entry❌ Not supported
Add new entry (DOI/ISBN)✅ Always writes here❌ Never written to
All citation-insertion actions
PDF management
Literature notes
New entries added via the DOI/ISBN feature are always appended to the primary library (bibtex_library_path), regardless of which entry was selected when the action was triggered. See Add New Entries for details.
The dual-library feature is ideal for scenarios like: a Zotero-exported group library as secondary and a hand-curated personal .bib as primary, or a per-project bibliography alongside your full reference collection. Since the secondary library is read-only from the workflow’s perspective, you can safely point it at any .bib file managed by another tool.

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