Research Proposal

What it does

When your agent uses it

• The user asks to write
• Draft a PhD / doctoral research proposal
• 开题报告 — a forward-looking plan of background
• Research questions

Example prompts

• “write a research proposal”
• “PhD proposal”
• “doctoral proposal”
• “/research-proposal”

Requirements

• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): WebSearch, WebFetch, Read, Write, Edit, AskUserQuestion, Glob, Grep, Bash, mcp__zotero__zotero_search_items, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_metadata, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_fulltext, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_annotations, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_notes, mcp__zotero__zotero_search_notes, mcp__zotero__zotero_semantic_search, mcp__zotero__zotero_advanced_search

Workflow steps

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

1. 1Requirements Gathering
2. 2Literature Collection (with verification gate)
3. 3Outline Generation
4. 4Content Writing (write-with-verify)
5. 5Output and Review

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 633d2b5. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • WebSearch
  • WebFetch
  • Read
  • Write
  • Edit
  • AskUserQuestion
  • Glob
  • Grep
  • Bash
  • mcp__zotero__zotero_search_items

  …and 7 more on the same allowed-tools line.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • pandoc

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

• Network

  Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

  • api.crossref.org

  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

Research Proposal loads about 4.4k tokens when it runs, and up to ~27k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 194 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,823 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~194

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~4.4k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~27k

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

• NotePre-approves every shell command (allowed-tools: Bash)SKILL.md

  allowed-tools: WebSearch, WebFetch, Read, Write, Edit, AskUserQuestion, Glob, Grep, Bash, mcp__zotero__zotero_searc

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

Without a licence we can't republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 1,823 words (~4,372 tokens).

name

research-proposal

allowed-tools

WebSearch, WebFetch, Read, Write, Edit, AskUserQuestion, Glob, Grep, Bash, mcp__zotero__zotero_search_items, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_metadata, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_fulltext, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_annotations, mcp__zotero__zotero_get_notes, mcp__zotero__zotero_search_notes, mcp__zotero__zotero_semantic_search, mcp__zotero__zotero_advanced_search

metadata.author

user

metadata.version

2.0.1

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

SKILL.md and 10 other files (references, assets) in research-proposal of luwill/research-skills.

• SKILL.md
• assets/proposal_scaffold_en.md
• assets/proposal_scaffold_zh.md
• learnings/2026-09-30-重写清不完所有文件.md
• learnings/README.md
• references/CITATION_INTEGRITY.md
• references/DOMAIN_TEMPLATES.md
• references/LITERATURE_WORKFLOW.md
• references/QUALITY_CHECKLIST.md
• references/STRUCTURE_GUIDE.md
• references/WRITING_STYLE_GUIDE.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 633d2b5