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Use lit-review to Conduct a structured literature search and synthesis for [topic, paper title, or research question], organizing theoretical, empirical, and methodological findings into a report with identified gaps and BibTeX citations saved to the quality_reports directory.
Required inputs
[topic, paper title, or research question]
User-approved starter prompt based on a pinned source version; check current skill requirements before running. Task evidence ↗
SKILL.md
name: lit-reviewdescription: Structured literature search and synthesis with citation extraction and gap identificationdisable-model-invocation: trueargument-hint: "[topic, paper title, or research question]"allowed-tools: ["Read", "Grep", "Glob", "Write", "WebSearch", "WebFetch"]
Literature Review
Conduct a structured literature search and synthesis on the given topic.
Input:$ARGUMENTS — a topic, paper title, research question, or phenomenon to investigate.
Steps
Parse the topic from $ARGUMENTS. If a specific paper is named, use it as the anchor.
Search for related work using available tools:
Check master_supporting_docs/supporting_papers/ for uploaded papers
Use WebSearch to find recent publications (if available)
Use WebFetch to access working paper repositories (if available)
Read any existing .bib file for papers already in the project
Empirical findings — key results, effect sizes, data sources
Methodological innovations — new estimators, identification strategies, inference methods
Open debates — unresolved disagreements in the literature
Identify gaps and opportunities:
What questions remain unanswered?
What data or methods could address them?
Where do findings conflict?
Extract citations in BibTeX format for all papers discussed.
Save the report to quality_reports/lit_review_[sanitized_topic].md
Output Format
# Literature Review: [Topic]
**Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Query:** [Original query from user]
## Summary
[2-3 paragraph overview of the state of the literature]
## Key Papers
### [Author (Year)] — [Short Title]
- **Main contribution:** [1-2 sentences]
- **Method:** [Identification strategy / data]
- **Key finding:** [Result with effect size if available]
- **Relevance:** [Why it matters for our research]
[Repeat for 5-15 papers, ordered by relevance]
## Thematic Organization
### Theoretical Contributions
[Grouped discussion]
### Empirical Findings
[Grouped discussion with comparison across studies]
### Methodological Innovations
[Methods relevant to the topic]
## Gaps and Opportunities
1. [Gap 1 — what's missing and why it matters]
2. [Gap 2]
3. [Gap 3]
## Suggested Next Steps
- [Concrete actions: papers to read, data to obtain, methods to consider]
## BibTeX Entries
```bibtex
@article{...}
---
## Important
- **Be honest about uncertainty.** If you cannot verify a citation, say so.
- **Prioritize recent work** (last 5-10 years) unless seminal papers are older.
- **Note working papers vs published papers** — working papers may change.
- **Do NOT fabricate citations.** If you're unsure about a paper's details, flag it for the user to verify.
lit-review by brycewang-stanford · The Skill Leaderboard