Agent skill

Worlddev Topic Selection

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

A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to.

MITAuto-check passedResearch & Science

Install Worlddev Topic Selection

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

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills worlddev-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/World-Development-Skills/skills/worlddev-topic-selection .claude/skills/worlddev-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
worlddev-topic-selection
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.6k tokens
SKILL.md length
815 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
2,387
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to.

  • Works in 3 steps: A development problem that matters —… → A defensible way of learning about it —… → Relevance that travels — what a…
  • Deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to
  • SKILL.md covers When to trigger, What WD actually selects for, Is this WD, or a sibling? A… and A worked selection…, plus 4 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Worlddev Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to. Tests scope, relevance, and outlet fit; it does not invent evidence or citations.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.6k 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, covering Citation management. 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

  • Deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to
  • Tasks that involve Citation management

Example prompts

  • “/worlddev-topic-selection”

Workflow steps

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

  1. A development problem that matters — poverty, inequality, livelihoods, institutions, governance, aid/NGOs, food and agriculture, health…
  2. A defensible way of learning about it — credible for the method used. Econometric papers need an identification logic; qualitative papers…
  3. Relevance that travels — what a policymaker, practitioner, or development scholar elsewhere takes away. WD rewards papers whose lessons…

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

Worlddev Topic Selection loads about 1.6k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 58 tokens; SKILL.md has 815 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~58
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.6k

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). 815 words, ~1,595 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/worlddev-topic-selection/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
worlddev-topic-selection
description
Use when deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to. Tests scope, relevance, and outlet fit; it does not invent evidence or citations.

Topic Selection (worlddev-topic-selection)

When to trigger

  • A development paper exists but it is unclear whether WD or a sibling (JDE, WBER, JDS, EDCC) is the right home
  • A reviewer or coauthor says the question is "interesting but not development" or "too narrow / too local"
  • The paper is methodologically strong but its real-world development stakes are implicit
  • The contribution is a clean estimate with no obvious audience beyond the method's specialists
  • A qualitative or single-country study needs to argue why it travels beyond its case

What WD actually selects for

WD is a multidisciplinary journal. The desk-screen question is not "is the identification clean?" but "does this advance how we understand or improve development in low- and middle-income contexts, and will a multidisciplinary readership care?" Three things must be present, in roughly this order:

  1. A development problem that matters — poverty, inequality, livelihoods, institutions, governance, aid/NGOs, food and agriculture, health, education, conflict, gender, environment-development. Stated as a problem in the world, not as a gap in a model.
  2. A defensible way of learning about it — credible for the method used. Econometric papers need an identification logic; qualitative papers need a transparent inferential logic; that is the next skill, but topic selection confirms the method is fit for the question.
  3. Relevance that travels — what a policymaker, practitioner, or development scholar elsewhere takes away. WD rewards papers whose lessons are not trapped inside one program evaluation.

Is this WD, or a sibling? A boundary table

If the paper is best described as…Lean toward
Frontier development econometrics; the contribution IS the identification/methodJournal of Development Economics
Economics-centric, often Bank-data or Bank-policy framed, technical economics audienceWorld Bank Economic Review
Interdisciplinary but more political-science / sociological / area-studies framingJournal of Development Studies
Long-run growth, culture, demography, economic history of developmentEconomic Development and Cultural Change
Broad development relevance, methodologically pluralist, equity- and institution-aware, policy-facingWorld Development ✓

The WD-defining move: a paper that a development economist and a development sociologist would both want to read, because the problem and its implications outrun any single method. If only one specialist audience cares, reconsider the venue.

A worked selection (illustrative)

"A cash-transfer RCT in one district raises school enrollment by 6pp." On its own this is a clean estimate that JDE would judge on design. To become a WD paper it must answer "so what for development?": does the effect persist, who is left out, what does it cost relative to alternatives, and what does it reveal about the institutions delivering it? The WD version foregrounds the mechanism and the implementation context — the RCT becomes evidence in a broader argument about how transfers interact with local institutions, which is what makes it travel.

Show full SKILL.md (368 more words)Show less

Five screening questions before you commit

Run these in order; a "no" sends you back to reframing, not forward.

  1. The headline-without-method test. Can you state the finding in one sentence that omits the technique and still matters to a development audience? If the sentence collapses without "we use an RDD," the contribution is the method — reroute to JDE.
  2. The cross-table test. Would a development economist and a development sociologist both put this on a reading list? If only one would, the framing is too narrow for WD's multidisciplinary remit.
  3. The equity question. Does the paper say something about who gains, who is excluded, or how a constraint binds for the poor? WD's readership expects distributional and institutional texture, not just an average effect.
  4. The travel test. If the result is from one country/program, name two other contexts where the lesson plausibly applies — and the scope condition that would break it. Cannot do it? The relevance may be local.
  5. The actionability test. Can a policymaker, donor, or practitioner do something differently because of this? WD rewards work that informs action, even when the implication is "this popular intervention does not work as believed."

Checklist

  • The development problem is stated as a problem in the world, with stakes a non-specialist grasps
  • The contribution is legible to BOTH an economist and a non-economist development scholar
  • The paper is distinguished from JDE (method-first) and from the relevant sibling explicitly
  • The method is appropriate to the question (causal design OR transparent qualitative logic), not chosen for prestige
  • Single-case or single-country work argues why its lessons travel (external relevance, not external validity alone)
  • Process facts cited are in resources/official-source-map.md or marked 待核实
  • The deliverable names the next decision, not just prose edits

Anti-patterns

  • Pitching a pure methods contribution to WD — that is JDE; WD will ask "so what for development?"
  • Equating "rigorous" with "fit for WD" — a flawless local estimate with no broader relevance gets desk-screened
  • Dressing a generic applied-micro paper in development vocabulary without a development stake
  • Assuming a qualitative paper is automatically "softer" — WD judges it by transparency and relevance, not by sample size
  • Inventing editor names, fees, or word limits instead of marking 待核实

Output format

text
【Journal】World Development (WD)
【Skill】worlddev-topic-selection
【Verdict】fit / reroute / sharpen
【Development stake】the problem in the world, one sentence
【Audience】who across disciplines cares, and why it travels
【Sibling boundary】why WD not JDE / WBER / JDS / EDCC
【Source status】verified URL / 待核实 / not asserted
【Next skill】worlddev-literature-positioning

© 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 World-Development-Skills/skills/worlddev-topic-selection of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

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Questions about Worlddev Topic Selection

What does Worlddev Topic Selection do?

A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to. Worlddev Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to.

When should I use Worlddev Topic Selection?

Worlddev Topic Selection fits situations like: deciding whether a development question fits World Development (WD) and which sibling journal it really belongs to; tasks that involve Citation management.

How do I install Worlddev Topic Selection in Claude Code?

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

How do I install Worlddev Topic Selection in Codex?

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

Can I use Worlddev 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 worlddev-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/worlddev-topic-selection, .gemini/skills/worlddev-topic-selection, .github/skills/worlddev-topic-selection and .opencode/skills/worlddev-topic-selection in your project.

What does Worlddev Topic Selection need to run?

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

Does Worlddev 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 Worlddev 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 Worlddev Topic Selection use?

Worlddev 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 Worlddev Topic Selection use?

About 1.6k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.4k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

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Who maintains Worlddev Topic Selection?

brycewang-stanford (a GitHub user) maintains it in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, which has 1,216 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.