Lit Review

Preamble (run first)

# --- GENERATED PREAMBLE START ---
_PROJECT_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)
if ! git rev-parse --show-toplevel >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "WARNING: Not inside a git repository. Files will be written to $(pwd)."
fi
mkdir -p ~/.rstack/sessions ~/.rstack/analytics "$_PROJECT_ROOT/.rstack"
touch ~/.rstack/sessions/"$PPID"
find ~/.rstack/sessions -mmin +120 -type f -delete 2>/dev/null || true
_SESSIONS=$(find ~/.rstack/sessions -mmin -120 -type f 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ')
_RSTACK_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.." 2>/dev/null && pwd || echo "$HOME/.claude/skills/rstack")"
_RSTACK_CONFIG="$_RSTACK_DIR/bin/rstack-config"
_UPD=$("$_RSTACK_DIR/bin/rstack-update-check" 2>/dev/null || true)
[ -n "$_UPD" ] && echo "$_UPD" || true
_VENUE=$("$_RSTACK_CONFIG" get venue 2>/dev/null || echo "arxiv")
_COMPUTE=$("$_RSTACK_CONFIG" get compute_preferred 2>/dev/null || echo "modal")
_PROACTIVE=$("$_RSTACK_CONFIG" get proactive 2>/dev/null || echo "true")
_TEL=$("$_RSTACK_CONFIG" get telemetry 2>/dev/null || echo "off")
_TEL_PROMPTED=$([ -f ~/.rstack/.telemetry-prompted ] && echo "yes" || echo "no")
_BRANCH=$(git branch --show-current 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")
echo "PROJECT_ROOT: $_PROJECT_ROOT"
echo "BRANCH: $_BRANCH"
echo "VENUE: $_VENUE"
echo "COMPUTE: $_COMPUTE"
echo "PROACTIVE: $_PROACTIVE"
if [ ! -f ~/.rstack/.setup-complete ]; then
  echo "NEEDS_SETUP"
fi
_TEL_START=$(date +%s)
_SESSION_ID="$$-$(date +%s)"
echo "TELEMETRY: ${_TEL:-off}"
echo "TEL_PROMPTED: $_TEL_PROMPTED"
if [ "$_TEL" != "off" ]; then
  echo '{"skill":"lit-review","ts":"'$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)'","repo":"'$(basename "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null)" 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")'"}'  >> ~/.rstack/analytics/skill-usage.jsonl 2>/dev/null || true
fi
if [ "$_TEL" != "off" ]; then
  echo '{"skill":"lit-review","ts":"'$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)'","session_id":"'"$_SESSION_ID"'","rstack_version":"'"$(cat "$_RSTACK_DIR/VERSION" 2>/dev/null | tr -d "[:space:]" || echo "unknown")"'"}'  > ~/.rstack/analytics/.pending-"$_SESSION_ID" 2>/dev/null || true
fi
for _PF in $(find ~/.rstack/analytics -maxdepth 1 -name '.pending-*' 2>/dev/null); do
  if [ -f "$_PF" ]; then
    _PF_BASE="$(basename "$_PF")"
    _PF_SID="${_PF_BASE#.pending-}"
    [ "$_PF_SID" = "$_SESSION_ID" ] && continue
    if [ "$_TEL" != "off" ] && [ -x "$_RSTACK_DIR/bin/rstack-telemetry-log" ]; then
      "$_RSTACK_DIR/bin/rstack-telemetry-log" --event-type skill_run --skill _pending_finalize --outcome unknown --session-id "$_SESSION_ID" 2>/dev/null || true
    fi
    rm -f "$_PF" 2>/dev/null || true
  fi
  break
done
eval "$("$_RSTACK_DIR/bin/rstack-slug" 2>/dev/null)" 2>/dev/null || true
echo "SLUG: ${SLUG:-unknown}"
# --- GENERATED PREAMBLE END ---

If output shows UPGRADE_AVAILABLE : read rstack-upgrade/SKILL.md and follow the "Inline Upgrade Flow". Then continue with this skill. If output shows JUST_UPGRADED : tell user "Running RStack v{to} (just updated!)" and continue.

If output shows NEEDS_SETUP: tell user "RStack not configured yet. Run /setup first." Then read setup-skill/SKILL.md and follow it inline before continuing.

If TEL_PROMPTED is no: Ask the user about telemetry. Use AskUserQuestion:

> Help RStack get better! Community mode shares usage data (which skills you use, > how long they take, crash info) with a stable device ID so we can track trends > and fix bugs faster. No code, file paths, or repo names are ever sent. > Change anytime with rstack-config set telemetry off.

Options:

• A) Help RStack get better! (recommended)
• B) No thanks

If A: run rstack-config set telemetry community

If B: ask a follow-up: > How about anonymous mode? Just a counter that helps us know if anyone's out there.

Options:

• A) Sure, anonymous is fine
• B) No thanks, fully off

If B→A: run rstack-config set telemetry anonymous If B→B: run rstack-config set telemetry off

Always run:

touch ~/.rstack/.telemetry-prompted

This only happens once. If TEL_PROMPTED is yes, skip this entirely.

Important: Note the PROJECT_ROOT value from the preamble output. All file paths below are relative to this project root directory. When instructions say "write to idea.md", write to {PROJECT_ROOT}/idea.md. When they say .rstack/lit-review.jsonl, write to {PROJECT_ROOT}/.rstack/lit-review.jsonl.

---

Step 0: Understand the Research Area

1. Read idea.md at the project root if it exists. This is the research idea to survey.
2. If idea.md does not exist, ask the user: "What research area should I survey? Describe your idea or topic."
3. Save the idea to idea.md at the project root if not already saved.
4. Extract 3-5 key concepts from the idea for search.

---

Step 1: Generate Search Queries

Convert the research idea into academic search terms. Generate 2-3 queries with different angles:

Query construction rules (from Ignis query-builder-agent pattern):

• Each query should be 8-20 terms
• Include: key technical terms, synonyms, core task/domain
• Vary across queries: one broad, one specific to the method, one specific to the application

Examples:

• Broad: "mixture of experts language model efficiency scaling"
• Method-specific: "sparse MoE gating mechanism load balancing transformer"
• Application-specific: "code generation small language model parameter efficient"

---

Step 2: Search for Papers

Use two search methods:

Method A — WebSearch (Claude's built-in tool): Search for each query. Focus on finding academic papers, not blog posts or news articles. Good search prefixes: "site:arxiv.org", "site:semanticscholar.org", "NeurIPS 2024", "ICML 2025"

Method B — Semantic Scholar API: For each query, call the S2 API to get structured metadata:

QUERY="mixture+of+experts+language+model+efficiency"
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search?query=$QUERY&limit=10&fields=title,authors,year,venue,abstract,externalIds,url,citationCount"

Rate limit handling: Wait 3 seconds between S2 API calls. The free tier allows 100 requests per 5 minutes. If you get a 429 response, wait 60 seconds and retry.

If S2 API fails entirely: Fall back to WebSearch only and note "Structured metadata unavailable — using web search results only."

Target: Find 15-25 relevant papers across both methods. Deduplicate by title.

---

Step 3: Assess and Record Each Paper

For each paper found, assess it and write a JSONL record to .rstack/lit-review.jsonl (in the project's .rstack/ plumbing directory).

Assessment criteria:

• Relevance (0-10): How directly does this paper relate to the research idea?
• 9-10: Directly addresses the same problem with the same or competing approach
• 7-8: Closely related method or application
• 5-6: Related but different angle (useful for context)
• 1-4: Tangentially related (skip recording if below 5)
• Key findings: 1-2 sentences on what the paper contributes
• Relationship to idea: How does this paper relate to our specific idea?

JSONL record format (one per line, append to file):

{"v":1,"id":"s2-abc123","title":"Mixture of Experts for Efficient Language Models","authors":["Alice Smith","Bob Jones"],"year":2025,"venue":"NeurIPS","abstract":"We propose...","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2025.12345","source":"semantic_scholar","relevance":8,"key_findings":"Sparse MoE reduces compute by 4x with 2% accuracy loss","relationship_to_idea":"Direct competitor — same method, different domain","citation_count":42}

Write each record as you go. Do not accumulate all papers in context — write to the JSONL file after assessing each paper. This keeps context manageable.

If a paper lacks some fields (no abstract from S2, missing venue), fill what's available and mark missing fields as empty strings.

---

Step 4: Consolidate Literature Review

After all papers are recorded, write a human-readable literature review to lit-review.md at the project root.

Structure (from Ignis consolidate-lit-review-agent pattern):

# Literature Review: {topic}

Generated by /lit-review on {date}

## Background
{2-3 paragraphs: field context, why this area matters, recent trends}

## Key Themes
{Major research directions identified across the papers. Group related papers.}

## Methods Landscape
{What approaches are people using? Compare methodologies across papers.}

## Datasets and Benchmarks
{What evaluation benchmarks are standard? What datasets are commonly used?}

## Limitations and Open Questions
{What gaps exist in the current literature? What hasn't been tried?
This is the most important section — it directly feeds /novelty-check.}

## Implications for Our Work
{How does this literature inform our research idea? What should we build on?
What should we avoid? What baselines should we compare against?}

## References
{Numbered list of all papers with title, authors, year, venue, URL}

Length: 800-1500 words. Only cite papers that are actually in .rstack/lit-review.jsonl (plumbing).

Important: When writing the consolidation, read from the JSONL file rather than relying on context memory. This ensures accuracy.

---

Step 5: Human Checkpoint

Count papers: total found, highly relevant (relevance >= 7), and the main gap identified.

Use AskUserQuestion:

> Project: {project name}, branch: {branch} > > Literature review complete. Found {total} papers, {relevant} highly relevant. > > Main finding: {one sentence about the key theme} > Main gap: {one sentence about what's missing in the literature} > > Saved to .rstack/lit-review.jsonl ({total} records) and lit-review.md. > > RECOMMENDATION: Choose A to proceed to novelty assessment.

Options:

• A) Proceed to /novelty-check
• B) Deepen search — look for more papers about {specific subtopic}
• C) Revise idea — the literature suggests a different direction
• D) Done — I just needed the literature review

If B: generate new search queries focused on the subtopic, repeat Steps 2-4, append new papers to the existing JSONL file, and update the lit-review.md.

If C: update idea.md with the new direction, then re-run from Step 1.

---

Important Rules

• Never hallucinate papers. Every paper must come from WebSearch or the S2 API. If you're not sure a paper exists, search for it first.
• Never fabricate citation counts, venues, or authors. If the data isn't available, leave the field empty.
• Write incrementally. Append each paper to the JSONL as you assess it, don't batch.
• Deduplicate. If the same paper appears in both WebSearch and S2 results, record it once (prefer the S2 version for structured data).
• Be honest about coverage. If the search only found 5 papers, say so. Don't pad with marginally relevant work.
• Zero results? Widen search terms. Try different combinations. If still zero after 3 query variations, ask user to refine the research idea.

---

Failure Modes

• S2 API rate limit (429): Wait 60 seconds, retry. If persistent, switch to WebSearch only.
• S2 API down: Use WebSearch exclusively. Note "S2 unavailable" in lit-review.md.
• Zero results from all sources: Ask user to refine or broaden the research idea.
• Too many results (>50): Filter by relevance >= 7 and citation count. Prioritize recent papers (last 3 years) and highly cited papers.

---

Telemetry (run last)

After the skill workflow completes (success, error, or abort), log the telemetry event.

# --- GENERATED EPILOGUE START ---
_TEL_END=$(date +%s)
_TEL_DUR=$(( _TEL_END - _TEL_START ))
rm -f ~/.rstack/analytics/.pending-"$_SESSION_ID" 2>/dev/null || true
if [ "$_TEL" != "off" ]; then
  echo '{"skill":"lit-review","duration_s":"'"$_TEL_DUR"'","outcome":"OUTCOME","session":"'"$_SESSION_ID"'","ts":"'$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)'"}' >> ~/.rstack/analytics/skill-usage.jsonl 2>/dev/null || true
fi
if [ "$_TEL" != "off" ] && [ -x "$_RSTACK_DIR/bin/rstack-telemetry-log" ]; then
  "$_RSTACK_DIR/bin/rstack-telemetry-log" \
    --skill "lit-review" --duration "$_TEL_DUR" --outcome "OUTCOME" \
    --session-id "$_SESSION_ID" --pipeline-stage "lit-review" 2>/dev/null &
fi
# --- GENERATED EPILOGUE END ---

Replace OUTCOME with success/error/abort based on the workflow result.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: sunnnybala
• Source: sunnnybala/Rstack
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.