diff --git a/.github/workflows/update_references.yml b/.github/workflows/update_references.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..1be0999295e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/update_references.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+name: Receive repository dispatch event
+
+on:
+  # Listen to a repository dispatch event by the name of `dispatch-event`
+  repository_dispatch:
+    types: [update-references]
+  workflow_dispatch:
+env:
+  GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+
+jobs:
+  create-pull-request:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - name: Checkout Repo
+        uses: actions/checkout@a5ac7e51b41094c92402da3b24376905380afc29 # v4.1.6
+
+      - name: Setup Node.js 20
+        uses: actions/setup-node@60edb5dd545a775178f52524783378180af0d1f8 # v4.0.2
+        with:
+          node-version: 20.x
+
+      - name: Set github commit user
+        env:
+          GITHUB_EMAIL: ${{ vars.GH_EMAIL }}
+          GITHUB_USER: ${{ vars.GH_USER }}
+        run: |
+          git config --global user.email $GITHUB_EMAIL
+          git config --global user.name $GITHUB_USER
+
+        # Set branch name to be used as environment variable
+      - name: Set Branch Name
+        run: echo "BRANCH_NAME=$(echo update-ref-$(date +%s))" >> $GITHUB_ENV
+
+        # Create new branch, download, and commit changes to the new branch
+      - name: Create new branch
+        run: |
+          git checkout -b ${{ env.BRANCH_NAME }}
+          curl -L -o ${{ vars.REF_LOC }} ${{ vars.REMOTE_REF }}
+          node tasks/clean-references.mjs
+          git add ${{ vars.REF_LOC }} ${{ vars.CLEAN_LOC }}
+          git commit -m "updating references"
+          git push -u origin ${{ env.BRANCH_NAME }}
+
+        # Open pull request
+      - name: Create Pull Request
+        run: gh pr create -B main -H ${{ env.BRANCH_NAME }} --title 'Merge ${{ env.BRANCH_NAME }} into main' --body 'Created by Github action'
diff --git a/src/directory/apiReferences.json b/src/references/raw-references.json
similarity index 100%
rename from src/directory/apiReferences.json
rename to src/references/raw-references.json
diff --git a/tasks/clean-references.mjs b/tasks/clean-references.mjs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..88fa07d94fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tasks/clean-references.mjs
@@ -0,0 +1,167 @@
+import references from '../src/references/raw-references.json' assert { type: 'json' };
+import { writeFileSync } from 'fs';
+import {
+  API_CATEGORIES,
+  API_SUB_CATEGORIES
+} from '../src/data/api-categories.mjs';
+
+/**
+ * The purpose of this script is to create generate an object that only contains
+ * the desired category nodes and every node needed to generate the api documentation
+ * for these nodes.  This is done by iterating over the needed category nodes and
+ * then recursively adding every node found into cleanReferences.
+ */
+
+const cleanReferences = {};
+const categoryNodes = [];
+
+function recursivelyPopulateNodes(node) {
+  /**
+   * Ids to look for and populate are
+   * target
+   * type
+   * typeArguments[]
+   * types[]
+   * declaration->children[]
+   * elementType -> target
+   * children[]
+   * signatures[]
+   * parameters[]
+   *
+   * The above list are the ids that are looked for within each node, if any of these ids
+   * are found then the node is added to cleanReferences and the newly found node is traversed.
+   */
+  if (!node) return;
+
+  // add the current node to cleanReferences
+  if (node.id) {
+    if (cleanReferences.hasOwnProperty(node.id)) return;
+    cleanReferences[node.id] = node;
+  }
+
+  // populate "target"
+  if (node.target && typeof node.target === 'number') {
+    recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[node.target]);
+  }
+
+  // populate "type"
+  if (node.type) {
+    if (typeof node.type === 'number') {
+      const nextNode = references[node.type];
+      recursivelyPopulateNodes(nextNode);
+    } else if (typeof node.type === 'object') {
+      recursivelyPopulateNodes(node.type);
+    }
+  }
+
+  // populate "typeArguments"
+  if (node.typeArguments && Array.isArray(node.typeArguments)) {
+    node.typeArguments.forEach((arg) => {
+      if (typeof arg === 'number') {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[arg]);
+      } else if (typeof arg === 'object' && arg !== null) {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(arg);
+      }
+    });
+  }
+
+  // populate "types"
+  if (node.types && Array.isArray(node.types)) {
+    node.types.forEach((arg) => {
+      if (typeof arg === 'number') {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[arg]);
+      } else if (typeof arg === 'object' && arg !== null) {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(arg);
+      }
+    });
+  }
+
+  // populate "declaration.children"
+  if (
+    node.declaration &&
+    node.declaration.children &&
+    Array.isArray(node.declaration.children)
+  ) {
+    node.declaration.children.forEach((arg) => {
+      if (typeof arg === 'number') {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[arg]);
+      } else if (typeof arg === 'object' && arg !== null) {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(arg);
+      }
+    });
+  }
+
+  // populate "elementType"
+  if (node.elementType && node.elementType.target) {
+    const elemType = node.elementType.target;
+    if (typeof elemType === 'number') {
+      recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[elemType]);
+    } else if (typeof elemType === 'object' && elemType !== null) {
+      recursivelyPopulateNodes(elemType);
+    }
+  }
+
+  // populate "children"
+  if (node.children && Array.isArray(node.children)) {
+    node.children.forEach((arg) => {
+      if (typeof arg === 'number') {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[arg]);
+      } else if (typeof arg === 'object' && arg !== null) {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(arg);
+      }
+    });
+  }
+
+  // populate "signatures"
+  if (node.signatures && Array.isArray(node.signatures)) {
+    node.signatures.forEach((arg) => {
+      if (typeof arg === 'number') {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[arg]);
+      } else if (typeof arg === 'object' && arg !== null) {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(arg);
+      }
+    });
+  }
+
+  // populate "parameters"
+  if (node.parameters && Array.isArray(node.parameters)) {
+    node.parameters.forEach((arg) => {
+      if (typeof arg === 'number') {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(references[arg]);
+      } else if (typeof arg === 'object' && arg !== null) {
+        recursivelyPopulateNodes(arg);
+      }
+    });
+  }
+}
+
+const categories = Object.values(API_CATEGORIES).concat(
+  Object.values(API_SUB_CATEGORIES)
+);
+
+// iterate over all categories and populate all nodes
+categories.forEach((catName) => {
+  const catNode = references.categories.filter((cat) => {
+    return cat.name === catName;
+  })[0];
+
+  if (catNode) {
+    categoryNodes.push(catNode);
+    recursivelyPopulateNodes(catNode);
+  }
+});
+
+cleanReferences['categories'] = categoryNodes;
+
+// write the cleaned references object, this will happen as part of the
+// update_references workflow and will be committed.
+try {
+  writeFileSync(
+    'src/references/references.json',
+    JSON.stringify(cleanReferences, null, 2),
+    'utf8'
+  );
+  console.log('Data successfully saved to disk');
+} catch (error) {
+  console.log('An error has occurred ', error);
+}