Agent skill

Arecon Topic Selection

by brycewang-stanford in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

A skill your agent uses when judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature, important, and genuinely in need of an authoritative, accessible…

MITAuto-check passed

Install Arecon Topic Selection

skills CLI
$ npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill arecon-topic-selection -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills arecon-topic-selection --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/Annual-Review-of-Economics-Skills/skills/arecon-topic-selection .claude/skills/arecon-topic-selection && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
arecon-topic-selection
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.4k tokens
SKILL.md length
670 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
2,387
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature, important, and genuinely in need of an authoritative, accessible…

  • Works in 4 steps: Maturity. There is a body of research —… → Broad importance. The questions matter… → Need for an accessible synthesis. A… → …
  • Judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature
  • SKILL.md covers When to trigger, What ARE is for, The four ARE-fit tests and Decision table, plus 4 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Arecon Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature, important, and genuinely in need of an authoritative, accessible synthesis — and framing the review's animating question. Decides fit; it does not gather the literature (arecon-literature-synthesis).

Its SKILL.md is about 1.4k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

The repository describes itself as: Journal-specific Claude Code/Codex skill packs covering mainstream journals — AER, QJE, Nature, Cell, 管理世界, 经济研究 & 200+ more — your fast track to getting published. | 覆盖主流期刊的… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature
  • Genuinely in need of an authoritative
  • Accessible synthesis — and framing the reviews animating question

Example prompts

  • “/arecon-topic-selection”

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Maturity. There is a body of research — multiple research lines, accumulated evidence, recognizable debates — not a handful of recent…
  2. Broad importance. The questions matter to economists generally, not only to a dozen specialists. ARE explicitly serves adjacent…
  3. Need for an accessible synthesis. A newcomer cannot currently get oriented without a guide, and existing entry points (a recent JEL…
  4. Tractable for ~25–40 pages. ARE reviews are substantial but not Handbook-length (检索于 2026-06;以官网为准). One author/team must read and weigh…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 932eb23. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Arecon Topic Selection loads about 1.4k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 82 tokens; SKILL.md has 670 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~82
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills at commit 932eb23, republished under its MIT licence (© brycewang-stanford). 670 words, ~1,387 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/arecon-topic-selection/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
arecon-topic-selection
description
Use when judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature, important, and genuinely in need of an authoritative, accessible synthesis — and framing the review's animating question. Decides fit; it does not gather the literature (arecon-literature-synthesis).

Topic Selection for an ARE Review (arecon-topic-selection)

When to trigger

  • You have a candidate field and need to know if it is "ARE-shaped"
  • A topic feels either too narrow (a single-question review) or too sprawling (a whole subfield)
  • You are deciding between ARE and a sibling outlet (JEL, JEP, a Handbook chapter, a field journal's review section)
  • The literature is young/fast-moving and you suspect it is not yet ready for an annual-volume review

What ARE is for

ARE is the Annual Reviews economics survey series: a yearly volume of invited, authoritative review articles that are accessible to economists outside the subfield, not only to its specialists. The reader is a competent economist who wants to enter, teach, or locate the open questions of a field they do not currently work in. That reader profile — and the annual-volume cadence — sets the fit bar.

The four ARE-fit tests

A literature belongs in ARE when it passes all four. If it fails one, route accordingly.

  1. Maturity. There is a body of research — multiple research lines, accumulated evidence, recognizable debates — not a handful of recent working papers. A field still being born produces a premature review that dates within a volume cycle. (Fails → too young; wait.)
  2. Broad importance. The questions matter to economists generally, not only to a dozen specialists. ARE explicitly serves adjacent economists; a review that only its own subfield could love is a field-journal review, not an ARE article. (Fails → too niche.)
  3. Need for an accessible synthesis. A newcomer cannot currently get oriented without a guide, and existing entry points (a recent JEL survey, a Handbook chapter) have not already done the job. The value is the accessible map, not the list. (Fails → already synthesized; nothing to add.)
  4. Tractable for ~25–40 pages. ARE reviews are substantial but not Handbook-length (检索于 2026-06;以官网为准). One author/team must read and weigh the relevant literature within that envelope. (Fails → carve a coherent axis, or it is a Handbook chapter.)

Decision table

SituationVerdictAction
Mature, broadly important, needs accessible synthesis, fits ~25–40 ppARE-shaped→ arecon-proposal-framing
Important but immatureNot yetrevisit in a volume or two
Mature but narrow / specialist-onlyWrong venuefield-journal review section
Mature, important, but enormous and exhaustiveWrong venueHandbook chapter or JEL (deeper, longer)
Non-technical, policy-facing, short, lay-adjacentWrong venueJournal of Economic Perspectives (JEP)
Show full SKILL.md (282 more words)Show less

Framing the animating question

An ARE review is organized by a question about the field, not by a topic label. Before approaching the Committee, write one sentence of each:

  • State-of-knowledge question: "What do we now know about X, and how confident should we be?"
  • Why now: what makes a synthesis valuable for this volume — a wave of new evidence, a methodological shift, a policy debate, convergence or fracture of findings.
  • Reader payoff: what an economist from an adjacent field can do after reading (enter the field, teach it, locate the open questions).

Checklist

  • The field passes all four fit tests (maturity, broad importance, need, ~25–40 pp tractability)
  • The animating question about the field is written in one sentence
  • The "why now" is concrete (new evidence / method shift / policy salience), not "no one has reviewed this"
  • The intended reader is the adjacent / non-specialist economist, and the payoff is stated
  • You can name the 3–6 research lines the review must cover (a coverage skeleton)
  • Checked it is not a JEP piece (non-technical, broad), a JEL survey (deeper/longer), or a Handbook chapter (exhaustive)
  • You are not the field's only contributor — the review will not become a self-retrospective

Anti-patterns

  • "No one has reviewed X" used as the sole justification — absence is not importance
  • Reviewing your own research program under a neutral title (self-promotion; ARE referees punish this)
  • Picking a field so new the review freezes a moving target before the volume prints
  • A scope so broad it becomes a Handbook chapter; so narrow it is a field-journal review
  • Confusing "topic" (a label) with "animating question" (what the review argues about the field)
  • Planning to submit cold — ARE does not take unsolicited manuscripts (see arecon-proposal-framing)

Output format

text
【Field】<the literature>
【Four tests】maturity / broad-importance / need-for-synthesis / ~25–40pp-tractable — pass or fail each
【Animating question】"What do we know about ___, and how sure are we?"
【Why now】<new evidence / method shift / policy salience>
【Reader payoff】<what an adjacent economist can do after reading>
【Coverage skeleton】<3–6 research lines the review must cover>
【Verdict】ARE-shaped / rescope / wrong-venue (→ JEL / JEP / Handbook / field review)
【Source status】verified URL / 待核实 / not asserted
【Next step】→ arecon-proposal-framing (get the topic to the Editorial Committee)

© brycewang-stanford, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in Annual-Review-of-Economics-Skills/skills/arecon-topic-selection of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

Compare with similar skills

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Questions about Arecon Topic Selection

What does Arecon Topic Selection do?

A skill your agent uses when judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature, important, and genuinely in need of an authoritative, accessible…. Arecon Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature, important, and genuinely in need of an authoritative, accessible synthesis — and framing the review's animating question.

When should I use Arecon Topic Selection?

Arecon Topic Selection fits situations like: judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature; genuinely in need of an authoritative; accessible synthesis — and framing the reviews animating question.

How do I install Arecon Topic Selection in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill arecon-topic-selection -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (Annual-Review-of-Economics-Skills/skills/arecon-topic-selection in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .claude/skills/arecon-topic-selection in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Arecon Topic Selection in Codex?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill arecon-topic-selection -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (Annual-Review-of-Economics-Skills/skills/arecon-topic-selection in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .agents/skills/arecon-topic-selection in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Arecon Topic Selection in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill arecon-topic-selection -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/arecon-topic-selection, .gemini/skills/arecon-topic-selection, .github/skills/arecon-topic-selection and .opencode/skills/arecon-topic-selection in your project.

What does Arecon Topic Selection need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Arecon Topic Selection is instructions for the agent only.

Does Arecon Topic Selection access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Arecon Topic Selection safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Arecon Topic Selection use?

Arecon Topic Selection is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Arecon Topic Selection use?

About 1.4k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.5k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Arecon Topic Selection?

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Who maintains Arecon Topic Selection?

brycewang-stanford (a GitHub user) maintains it in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, which has 1,228 GitHub stars. The repository holds 2,387 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 27, 2026.

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.