A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in.

MITAuto-check passedEducation

Install Ylj Topic Selection

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

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills ylj-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/Yale-Law-Journal-Skills/skills/ylj-topic-selection .claude/skills/ylj-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
ylj-topic-selection
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.4k tokens
SKILL.md length
653 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 legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in.

  • Works in 4 steps: Generalist stakes. A constitutional-law… → A claim, not a survey. YLJ wants an… → Headroom for novelty. A first scan… → …
  • Deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in
  • SKILL.md covers When to trigger, Fit test (a topic must clear…, Fit-gate ledger and Generalist-significance ladder…, plus 5 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Ylj Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in. It tests generalist significance, timeliness, and novelty potential; it does not draft the thesis or run the formal preemption search.

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.

It sits in Education, covering Essays and academic help. 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 legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in
  • Tasks that involve Essays and academic help

Example prompts

  • “/ylj-topic-selection”

Workflow steps

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

  1. Generalist stakes. A constitutional-law professor and a commercial-litigation partner can both
  2. A claim, not a survey. YLJ wants an argument that changes how readers think about a doctrine,
  3. Headroom for novelty. A first scan (Westlaw secondary sources, SSRN, HeinOnline) suggests the
  4. Right scale for a track. Big original theory → Article; sharp, contained intervention →

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

Ylj Topic Selection loads about 1.4k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 69 tokens; SKILL.md has 653 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~69
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). 653 words, ~1,389 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/ylj-topic-selection/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
ylj-topic-selection
description
Use when deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in. It tests generalist significance, timeliness, and novelty potential; it does not draft the thesis or run the formal preemption search.

Topic Selection & Fit (ylj-topic-selection)

YLJ is the generalist flagship of American legal scholarship — read across the whole discipline by academics, judges, and practitioners. A topic earns a slot only if its claim matters beyond a single doctrinal niche. This skill screens the idea before you invest in a full draft; it does not yet build the claim (ylj-thesis-and-contribution) or prove novelty (ylj-preemption-check).

When to trigger

  • You have an idea and want to know if YLJ is the right home (vs. a specialty review)
  • Several candidate angles exist and you must pick the one with the widest reach
  • Deciding Article vs. Essay vs. Feature vs. (for Yale students) Note/Comment
  • A timely development (new statute, circuit split, landmark opinion) might justify the Forum

Fit test (a topic must clear all four)

  1. Generalist stakes. A constitutional-law professor and a commercial-litigation partner can both say in one sentence why the claim matters. If only specialists in your subfield care, target a specialty review instead.
  2. A claim, not a survey. YLJ wants an argument that changes how readers think about a doctrine, theory, or institution — not a doctrinal literature review or a casenote.
  3. Headroom for novelty. A first scan (Westlaw secondary sources, SSRN, HeinOnline) suggests the space is not already occupied. Confirm later with ylj-preemption-check.
  4. Right scale for a track. Big original theory → Article; sharp, contained intervention → Essay; timely reaction to a development or a response to a YLJ piece → Forum.

Fit-gate ledger

Before sending the user onward, write a short keep / reframe / reject ledger. This prevents generic "top law review" advice from passing as a YLJ fit decision.

GatePass evidenceIf weak
Audience travelName two legal audiences outside the subfield and the reason each should careReframe the stakes or route to a specialty review
Claim pressureState the contestable move, not just the topicRoute to ylj-thesis-and-contribution before picking a venue
Novelty headroomIdentify the first SSRN / Westlaw / HeinOnline scan and the closest near-missRoute to ylj-preemption-check before investing in the draft
Track fitMatch ambition, timeliness, and length to Article / Essay / Forum / Note / CommentSplit or compress the idea before submission planning

Use KEEP only when all four gates have concrete evidence. Use REFRAME when the idea could become YLJ-shaped after narrowing, broadening, or changing tracks. Use REJECT when the only plausible value is specialist, descriptive, or already preempted.

Show full SKILL.md (260 more words)Show less

Generalist-significance ladder (push the topic up a rung)

RungExample framingVerdict
Doctrinal fix in one circuit"The Ninth Circuit misreads § X"Specialty review, not YLJ
Doctrine-wide problem"Courts across circuits misframe X"Borderline — needs a theory
Doctrine ↔ theory"X reveals a flaw in how we think about Y"YLJ Essay candidate
New framework for an institution"A new account of how Y should work"YLJ Article candidate

Track sizing

  • Article — original, ambitious scholarship; encouraged < 25,000 words incl. footnotes (~50 Journal pages) (检索于 2026-06;以官网为准).
  • Essay — a pointed contribution; encouraged < 15,000 words incl. footnotes (~30 pages).
  • Feature — curated set / symposium; coordinate with editors via ylj-placement-strategy.
  • Note / Comment — Yale Law students only; route to ylj-student-editor-review for the Notes Development process and the first-time word caps.
  • Forum — short, timely online piece, encouraged < 10,000 words incl. footnotes (~20 pages).

Checklist

  • One-sentence statement of why a generalist reader cares
  • The idea is a claim that changes a reader's mind, not a summary
  • Quick scan suggests novelty headroom (formal check deferred to preemption)
  • Timeliness assessed — is this an Article (durable) or a Forum (time-sensitive)?
  • Track chosen and its encouraged length is realistic for the idea

Anti-patterns

  • Pitching a casenote, doctrinal survey, or student-seminar paper as a generalist Article
  • Choosing a topic so timely it will be stale by the print cycle (that is a Forum piece)
  • Picking a niche only specialists value, then hoping prestige carries it
  • Ignoring that an over-length manuscript weighs against acceptance regardless of quality

Output format

【Topic】one line
【Generalist stakes】who outside the subfield cares, and why
【Fit gate】KEEP / REFRAME / REJECT + weakest gate
【Track】Article / Essay / Feature / Note / Comment / Forum (length realistic? Y/N)
【Novelty headroom】initial read (formal check pending)
【Next】ylj-thesis-and-contribution to sharpen the claim

Supplementary resources

© 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 Yale-Law-Journal-Skills/skills/ylj-topic-selection of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

Compare with similar skills

Ylj Topic Selection 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.

Ylj Topic Selection compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Ylj Topic Selection this skillbrycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills1.2k—~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
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Humanities Thesisganzhi-black/humanities-thesis-skill632—~1.7kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Skill Thesis Writeryanlin-cheng/skill-thesis-writer207—~1.6kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
Thesis CreatorStars-OC/thesis-creator230—~2.8kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Categories

Questions about Ylj Topic Selection

What does Ylj Topic Selection do?

A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in. Ylj Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in.

When should I use Ylj Topic Selection?

Ylj Topic Selection fits situations like: deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in; tasks that involve Essays and academic help.

How do I install Ylj Topic Selection in Claude Code?

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

How do I install Ylj Topic Selection in Codex?

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

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

What does Ylj Topic Selection need to run?

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

Does Ylj 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 Ylj 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 Ylj Topic Selection use?

Ylj 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 Ylj Topic Selection use?

About 1.4k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.6k 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 Ylj Topic Selection?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Ylj Topic Selection: Academic Paper Strategist (AAASS554/codex-academic-paper-skills, 539 stars), Modeling Paper Rubric and Model Selector (yushui2022/MathModel-Skill, 453 stars), Humanities Thesis (ganzhi-black/humanities-thesis-skill, 632 stars) and Skill Thesis Writer (yanlin-cheng/skill-thesis-writer, 207 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Ylj 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.