Summarize academic papers, extract key findings, and identify research gaps

Custom licenceAuto-check passedResearch & Science

Install Lit Review

skills CLI
$ npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill lit-review -a claude-code

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills lit-review --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/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/30-zirui-song-claude-skills/lit-review .claude/skills/lit-review && 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
lit-review
GitHub stars
4.6k
Token cost
~842 tokens
SKILL.md length
370 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
383
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Custom licence

At a glance

Summarize academic papers, extract key findings, and identify research gaps

  • Works in 7 steps: Basic Information → Research Question → Data & Sample → …
  • Research & Science work in your project
  • SKILL.md covers Paper Summary Template, Quick Commands, Comparison Table Format and Literature Gap Analysis, plus 2 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Lit Review is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills. Summarize academic papers, extract key findings, and identify research gaps

Its SKILL.md is about 840 tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Research & Science. The repository describes itself as: 🔬 A curated collection of 23,000+ agent skills for empirical research across 8 social science disciplines. | 精选 23,000+ AI Agent 技能库,覆盖8大社会科学学科的实证研究。CoPaper.AI…

When your agent uses it

  • Research & Science work in your project

Example prompts

  • “/lit-review”

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Basic Information
  2. Research Question
  3. Data & Sample
  4. Methodology
  5. Main Findings
  6. Robustness & Limitations
  7. Relevance to My Research

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 9fa87d8. 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 (its code samples are bibtex).

    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

Lit Review loads about 842 tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 22 tokens; SKILL.md has 370 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~22
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~842

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

Its licence (Custom licence) doesn't allow us to republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 370 words (~842 tokens).

“When the user provides a paper (PDF, URL, or description), help them systematically analyze and document it for their research.”

— opening of SKILL.md by brycewang-stanford, Custom licence
name
lit-review

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/30-zirui-song-claude-skills/lit-review of brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 9fa87d8

Compare with similar skills

Lit Review next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Lit Review compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Lit Review this skillbrycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills4.6k—~842Automated safety check: PassCustom licence
Hypothesis Generationspacering-net/codeg3.9k14 repos~3.6kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
GitHub Deep Researchbytedance/deer-flow84k4 repos~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Nature Paper CardYuan1z0825/nature-skills47k2 repos~2.1kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Content Research Writerweapp-tailwindcss/weapp-tailwindcss1.9k25 repos~3.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Last30daysmvanhorn/last30days-skill64k—~7.9kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT

Similar skills

  • Hypothesis Generation

    spacering-net/codeg

    Structured hypothesis formulation from observations. An agent skill from spacering-net/codeg.

    3.9k GitHub starsUsed in 14 repos~3.6k tokens
    Research & ScienceAuto-check: notes
  • GitHub Deep Research

    bytedance/deer-flow

    Researches a GitHub repository over four rounds using the GitHub API and web search, then writes a structured markdown report with timeline, metrics and Mermaid diagrams.

    84k GitHub starsUsed in 4 repos~1.3k tokens
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Nature Paper Card

    Yuan1z0825/nature-skills

    Builds a structured deep-reading card for one scientific paper, covering methods, how experiments support claims, limitations and research ideas, with a script to prepare the source.

    47k GitHub starsUsed in 2 repos~2.1k tokens
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Content Research Writer

    weapp-tailwindcss/weapp-tailwindcss

    Assists in writing high-quality content by conducting research, adding citations, improving hooks, iterating on outlines, and providing real-time feedback on each section.

    1.9k GitHub starsUsed in 25 repos~3.5k tokens
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Last30days

    mvanhorn/last30days-skill

    Research what people actually say about any topic in the last 30 days.

    64k GitHub stars~7.9k tokensUpdated yesterday
    Research & ScienceAuto-check: notes
  • Peer Review

    spacering-net/codeg

    Structured manuscript/grant review with checklist-based evaluation.

    3.9k GitHub starsUsed in 17 repos~5.9k tokens
    Research & ScienceAuto-check: notes

More from brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

All 383 skills in this repo
  • Aer Consistency

    brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when auditing a finished or near-finished AER, AER:Insights, or AEJ manuscript for internal consistency: headline numbers across abstract, introduction, results, and tables…

    4.6k GitHub starsUsed in 1 repo~2.6k tokens
    Auto-check passed
  • Latex Paper En

    brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

    English LaTeX academic paper assistant for existing .tex projects.

    4.6k GitHub starsUsed in 1 repo~2.2k tokens
    Auto-check passed
  • Bayesian Workflow

    brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

    Opinionated Bayesian modeling workflow with PyMC and ArviZ. An agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills.

    4.6k GitHub stars~3.5k tokensUpdated 6 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Daily Paper Generator

    brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when the user asks to "generate daily paper", "search arXiv for EEG papers", "find EEG decoding papers", "review brain-computer interface papers", or wants to create paper…

    4.6k GitHub stars~2.2k tokensUpdated 6 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Five Questions

    brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

    Deeply analyze any empirical economics PDF using the five-question framework (五问框架): research question, identification strategy, core estimand, robustness logic, and scholarly contribution.

    4.6k GitHub stars~1.7k tokensUpdated 6 days ago
    Auto-check: notes
  • Kaggle Research

    brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when a research task needs reproducible Kaggle discovery, metadata inspection, bounded public-data downloads, competition or kernel discovery, model discovery, or an…

    4.6k GitHub stars~868 tokensUpdated 6 days ago
    Auto-check passed

Questions about Lit Review

What does Lit Review do?

Summarize academic papers, extract key findings, and identify research gaps. Lit Review is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills.

When should I use Lit Review?

Lit Review fits situations like: research & Science work in your project.

How do I install Lit Review in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill lit-review -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/30-zirui-song-claude-skills/lit-review in brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills) into .claude/skills/lit-review in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Lit Review in Codex?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill lit-review -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/30-zirui-song-claude-skills/lit-review in brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills) into .agents/skills/lit-review in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Lit Review 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/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill lit-review -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/lit-review, .gemini/skills/lit-review, .github/skills/lit-review and .opencode/skills/lit-review in your project.

What does Lit Review need to run?

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

Does Lit Review 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 Lit Review 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 Lit Review use?

Lit Review has a licence file (the repository's licence) that doesn't match a standard licence. Read it on GitHub before reusing the skill.

How many tokens does Lit Review use?

About 842 tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 3.4k 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 Lit Review?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Lit Review: Hypothesis Generation (spacering-net/codeg, 3.9k stars), GitHub Deep Research (bytedance/deer-flow, 84k stars), Nature Paper Card (Yuan1z0825/nature-skills, 47k stars) and Content Research Writer (weapp-tailwindcss/weapp-tailwindcss, 1.9k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Lit Review?

brycewang-stanford (a GitHub user) maintains it in brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills, which has 4,556 GitHub stars. The repository holds 383 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 5, 2026.

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