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literature-review

Conduct comprehensive, systematic literature reviews using multiple academic databases (PubMed, arXiv, bioRxiv, Semantic Scholar, etc.). This skill should be used when conducting systematic literature reviews, meta-analyses, research synthesis, or comprehensive literature searches across biomedical, scientific, and technical domains. Creates professionally formatted markdown documents and PDFs with verified citations in multiple citation styles (APA, Nature, Vancouver, etc.).

57

Quality

67%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

No eval scenarios have been run

SecuritybySnyk

Advisory

Suggest reviewing before use

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./scientific-skills/literature-review/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Discovery

100%

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

This is a strong skill description that clearly articulates specific capabilities (database searching, citation formatting), includes an explicit 'Use when' clause with relevant trigger scenarios, and names concrete tools and formats. The description is well-structured, uses third person voice appropriately, and provides enough detail to distinguish it from general research or writing skills.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

Lists multiple specific concrete actions: conducting systematic literature reviews, searching multiple named academic databases (PubMed, arXiv, bioRxiv, Semantic Scholar), creating formatted markdown documents and PDFs, and handling verified citations in multiple named styles (APA, Nature, Vancouver).

3 / 3

Completeness

Clearly answers both 'what' (conduct systematic literature reviews using multiple databases, create formatted documents with verified citations) and 'when' (explicit 'This skill should be used when' clause listing systematic literature reviews, meta-analyses, research synthesis, comprehensive literature searches).

3 / 3

Trigger Term Quality

Includes strong natural keywords users would say: 'literature review', 'systematic literature review', 'meta-analyses', 'research synthesis', 'literature searches', 'PubMed', 'arXiv', 'citations', 'APA', and domain terms like 'biomedical', 'scientific'. Good coverage of terms a researcher would naturally use.

3 / 3

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Occupies a clear niche focused on systematic literature reviews across academic databases with specific citation formatting. The combination of named databases, citation styles, and academic research focus makes it highly distinctive and unlikely to conflict with general document or writing skills.

3 / 3

Total

12

/

12

Passed

Implementation

35%

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

This skill is comprehensive in scope but severely undermined by verbosity — it reads more like a textbook chapter on systematic reviews than a concise skill file for Claude. Much of the content (PICO framework explanation, Boolean operator basics, journal tier rankings, h-index thresholds) is general academic knowledge Claude already possesses. The actionability is moderate with some good CLI examples but relies on unbundled scripts, and the workflow, while well-structured in phases, lacks intermediate validation checkpoints between steps.

Suggestions

Cut content by 60-70%: Remove explanations of PICO, Boolean operators, what preprints are, journal tier lists, author h-index guidance, and other general academic knowledge Claude already has. Focus only on tool-specific commands and project-specific conventions.

Move database-specific search guidance, citation style examples, and best practices/pitfalls into separate reference files (e.g., references/database_strategies.md, references/citation_styles.md) and keep SKILL.md as a lean overview with pointers.

Add explicit validation checkpoints between phases: e.g., 'After Phase 2, verify you have results from ≥3 databases before proceeding to screening' and 'After deduplication, confirm unique count before title screening.'

Remove the duplicated 'Screening and Selection' best practices section and consolidate all best practices into a single, brief checklist rather than prose paragraphs.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

Extremely verbose at ~500+ lines. Contains extensive explanations Claude already knows (what PICO is, what Boolean operators are, what preprints are, basic search concepts). The journal tier lists, author reputation assessment, citation count thresholds, and h-index guidance are general knowledge that inflate token count significantly. Multiple sections are duplicated (e.g., 'Screening and Selection' best practices appear twice). The 'Best Practices' and 'Common Pitfalls' sections largely restate what was already covered in the workflow.

1 / 3

Actionability

Provides concrete CLI commands for parallel-cli and some bash examples, but many steps rely on scripts (verify_citations.py, search_databases.py, generate_pdf.py) that are referenced but not bundled, making them unverifiable. Several database search examples are pseudocode or incomplete (arXiv Python snippet is a fragment, gget commands lack full syntax). The workflow mixes executable commands with vague instructions like 'Manually screen titles, abstracts, full texts.'

2 / 3

Workflow Clarity

The 7-phase workflow is well-sequenced with clear phases and the citation verification step serves as a validation checkpoint. However, there are no explicit validation/feedback loops between phases (e.g., no checkpoint after Phase 2 to verify search completeness before screening). The PRISMA flow diagram is mentioned but only as a text sketch. The quality checklist at the end is good but comes too late and doesn't integrate into the workflow as intermediate checkpoints.

2 / 3

Progressive Disclosure

References external files (references/citation_styles.md, references/database_strategies.md, assets/review_template.md, scripts/) but no bundle files are provided to verify they exist. The SKILL.md itself is monolithic — the citation style guide, database-specific search guidance, journal tier tables, and author reputation sections could all be in separate reference files. The inline content is far too long for an overview document.

2 / 3

Total

7

/

12

Passed

Validation

81%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation9 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

skill_md_line_count

SKILL.md is long (700 lines); consider splitting into references/ and linking

Warning

metadata_version

'metadata.version' is missing

Warning

Total

9

/

11

Passed

Repository
K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-skills
Reviewed

Table of Contents

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