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Literature Review Assistant

Run structured literature reviews with recorded searches, citation checks, and Markdown/PDF output

Source Download skill
Repository
K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
Stars
55,780
Licence
MIT
Files
12 files

What it does

This skill teaches an AI agent to follow a seven-phase systematic literature review process: planning the question and criteria, recording search strings, screening records, extracting data, synthesizing findings by theme, checking citations, and generating a formatted document. It also provides PRISMA-style counting guidance and helper scripts that process normalized search records, check DOI registration, and render Markdown to PDF via Pandoc. The agent still has to do the reading and judgment; the scripts do not run a full review automatically and do not query databases directly.

Great for

  • Graduate students writing a thesis literature review who want a reproducible search log
  • Researchers preparing a systematic or scoping review who need PRISMA count tracking
  • Writers who want citations checked and a formatted Markdown or PDF bibliography

Skip it if

  • Quick informal summaries of a topic, since the process is heavy and expects structured records (overkill for casual reading)
  • Clinical or regulatory decisions based on the output, because automated checks and AI-generated figures do not prove scientific accuracy
  • Projects without Pandoc and XeLaTeX installed if PDF output is needed, since rendering will fail

Try asking

  • “Plan a scoping review on microplastics in freshwater, with inclusion criteria and a search log”
  • “Check the DOIs and references in my draft literature review section for errors”
  • “Turn my reviewed Markdown notes into a PDF with a numbered bibliography”
  • “Draft a conceptual evidence-map schematic from my extraction table”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Literature Review AssistantInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 12 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    literature-review.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip literature-review.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip literature-review.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Save every search string and date as you go, so the review can be reproduced later
  • Verify every citation against the actual source yourself; the DOI check only confirms registration
  • Treat AI-generated schematics as drafts and inspect labels and counts manually before use

What's inside

  • assets/review_template.md
  • references/citation_styles.md
  • references/core_workflow.md
  • references/database_strategies.md
  • references/example_workflow.md
  • references/search_and_citation.md
  • scripts/generate_pdf.py
  • scripts/generate_schematic_ai.py
  • scripts/generate_schematic.py
  • scripts/search_databases.py
  • scripts/verify_citations.py
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.