How to cite a piece of software in Vancouver
Research software or a code repository. Numbered style used across biomedical journals.
Quick answer
To cite a piece of software in Vancouver, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
1. Willighagen L. citation-js [Internet]. 2024. Available from: https://github.com/citation-js/citation-js
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for Vancouver. For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
What you need
For a piece of software, Vancouver expects these fields at minimum:
- Author(s) / maintainers
- Year
- Software name
- Version or commit hash
- Repository URL
- DOI (Zenodo if released)
Common mistakes
- Writing out author first names. Vancouver uses initials without periods ('Smith J').
- Italicizing the journal name. Vancouver uses Index Medicus abbreviation without italics.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
- Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.
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Last updated: 5 May 2026