org-cite is a minimal frontend for handling citations (inserting, following, activating) that comes with org-mode. It is a newer alternative to org-ref, which is a 3rd party package. org-cite has configurable backends (called “citation processors”) that are responsible for managing the bibliography and control the concrete looks and actions of cite links. org-cite was announced in [1].

org-cite ships with a default backend called “basic”, which has basic bibtex support. More powerful backends exist, such as citar.

org-cite links can only be in single brackets and don’t allow specifying a label for the link. This is probably because the actual textual representation of a cituation depends on the style and exporter used.