feynman/skills/research/literature-review/SKILL.md

name, description

name	description
literature-review	Use this when the task is to survey prior work, compare papers, synthesize a field, or build a reading list grounded in primary sources.

Literature Review

When To Use

Use this skill when the user wants:

• a research overview
• a paper shortlist
• a comparison of methods
• a synthesis of consensus and disagreement
• a source-backed brief on a topic

Procedure

1. Search broadly first.
2. If the topic is primarily academic or paper-centric, start with alpha_search.
3. If the topic includes current products, companies, markets, software, or "latest/current" framing, start with web_search and fetch_content, then use alpha_search only for academic background.
4. Pick the strongest candidates by direct relevance, recency, citations, venue quality, and source quality.
5. Inspect the top papers with alpha_get_paper before making concrete claims.
6. Use alpha_ask_paper for missing methodological or experimental details.
7. Build a compact evidence table:
   • title
   • year
   • authors
   • venue
   • claim or contribution
   • important caveats
8. Distinguish:
   • what multiple sources agree on
   • where methods or findings differ
   • what remains unresolved
9. If the user wants a durable artifact, write a markdown brief to disk.
10. If you discover an important gotcha about a paper, save it with alpha_annotate_paper.
11. End with a Sources section that lists direct URLs, not just titles.

Pitfalls

• Do not summarize a field from titles alone.
• Do not flatten disagreements into fake consensus.
• Do not treat recent preprints as established facts without saying so.
• Do not cite secondary commentary when a primary source is available.
• Do not treat a current product or market topic as if it were a paper-only topic.

Output Shape

Prefer this structure:

• question
• strongest papers
• major findings
• disagreements or caveats
• open questions
• recommended next reading or experiments
• sources