diff --git a/.github/workflows/validate-zenodo.yaml b/.github/workflows/validate-zenodo.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cb4ee12
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/validate-zenodo.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+name: Check zenodo metadata
+
+on:
+    push:
+        paths:
+          - '.zenodo.json'
+          - '.github/workflows/validate-zenodo.yaml'
+
+jobs:
+  check-zenodo-metadata:
+
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
+      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
+        with:
+          node-version: '22'
+      - name: Install dependencies
+        run: npm install zenodraft@0.14.1
+      - name: Check .zenodo.json file
+        run: |
+          npx zenodraft metadata validate .zenodo.json 
diff --git a/.zenodo.json b/.zenodo.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..840edde
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.zenodo.json
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+{
+    "creators": [
+        {
+            "name": "Kopanev, Andrei",
+            "affiliation": "The Ohio State University"
+        },
+        {
+            "name": "Zhang, Net",
+            "affiliation": "The Ohio State University"
+        },
+        {
+            "name": "Gu, Jianyang",
+            "affiliation": "The Ohio State University"
+        },
+        {
+            "name": "Stevens, Samuel",
+            "affiliation": "The Ohio State University"
+        },
+        {
+            "name": "Thompson, Matthew J.",
+            "affiliation": "The Ohio State University"
+        },
+        {
+            "name": "Campolongo, Elizabeth G.",
+            "affiliation": "The Ohio State University"
+        }
+    ],
+    "description": "A tool for processing datasets that were downloaded using the distributed-downloader package, specifically used for constructing the TreeOfLife-200M dataset.",
+    "keywords": [
+        "biology",
+        "CV",
+        "imageomics",
+        "species",
+        "images",
+        "parallel",
+        "distributed",
+        "processing",
+        "url",
+        "dataset-generation",
+        "MPI-application",
+        "face-detection",
+        "image-filtering",
+        "animal-detection",
+        "specimen-records",
+        "citizen-science",
+        "embedding-generation"
+    ],
+    "license": {
+        "id": "MIT"
+    },
+    "publication_date": "2025-11-14",
+    "title": "TreeOfLife-toolbox",
+    "version": "0.4.0-beta",
+    "grants": [
+        {
+            "id": "021nxhr62::2118240"
+        }
+    ]
+}
diff --git a/CITATION.cff b/CITATION.cff
index 1ba1790..ad1fa52 100644
--- a/CITATION.cff
+++ b/CITATION.cff
@@ -24,23 +24,30 @@ authors:
     orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0846-2413'
 repository-code: 'https://github.com/Imageomics/TreeOfLife-toolbox'
 identifiers:
-  - description: "The GitHub release URL of tag v0.2.0-beta."
+  - description: "The GitHub release URL of tag v0.4.0-beta."
     type: url
-    value: "https://github.com/Imageomics/TreeOfLife-toolbox/releases/tag/v0.2.0-beta"
-  - description: "The GitHub URL of the commit tagged with v0.2.0-beta."
+    value: "https://github.com/Imageomics/TreeOfLife-toolbox/releases/tag/v0.4.0-beta"
+  - description: "The GitHub URL of the commit tagged with v0.4.0-beta."
     type: url
     value: "https://github.com/Imageomics/TreeOfLife-toolbox/tree/<commit-hash>" # update post release
 abstract: >-
   A tool for processing datasets that were downloaded using the distributed-downloader package, 
   specifically used for constructing the TreeOfLife-200M dataset.
 keywords:
-  - parallel
-  - distributed
-  - processing
-  - url
-  - imageomics
-  - "dataset generation"
-  - "MPI application"
+  - "parallel"
+  - "distributed"
+  - "processing"
+  - "url"
+  - "imageomics"
+  - "dataset-generation"
+  - "MPI-application"
+  - "face-detection"
+  - "image-filtering"
+  - "animal-detection"
+  - "specimen-records"
+  - "citizen-science"
+  - "embedding-generation"
 license: MIT
-version: 0.2.0-beta
-date-released: '2025' # update on release
+version: 0.4.0-beta
+date-released: '2025-11-14'
+# doi: Add Version-agnostic DOI post-release
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 3ba3d86..cbfcc61 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -120,10 +120,10 @@ If using the [TreeOfLife-200M dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/imageomic
 @software{Kopanev_TreeOfLife-toolbox_2025,
   author = {Kopanev, Andrei and Zhang, Net and Gu, Jianyang and Stevens, Samuel and Thompson, Matthew J and Campolongo, Elizabeth G},
   license = {MIT},
-  month = may,
+  month = nov,
   title = {{TreeOfLife-toolbox}},
   url = {https://github.com/Imageomics/TreeOfLife-toolbox},
-  version = {0.2.0-beta},
+  version = {0.4.0-beta},
   year = {2025}
 }
 ```