# Lit Review

Structured literature search + synthesis with citation extraction, thematic clustering...

- Repository: https://github.com/pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow (1676 stars)
- Category: Engineering
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-09-27
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill lit-review -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill lit-review -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill lit-review -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill lit-review -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Structured literature search + synthesis with citation extraction, thematic clustering, and gap identification. Use when user says "find papers on X", "do a lit review", "what's the literature on...", "summarize what we know about...", "where's the gap in this field", "review recent work on Y". Produces a written review with BibTeX-ready citations. Uses WebSearch/WebFetch for recent work.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Literature Review

Conduct a structured literature search and synthesis on the given topic.

**Input:** `$ARGUMENTS`, a topic, paper title, research question, or phenomenon to investigate.

---

## Steps

1. **Parse the topic** from `$ARGUMENTS`. If a specific paper is named, use it as the anchor.

2. **Search for related work** using available tools:
   - Check `master_supporting_docs/supporting_papers/` for uploaded papers
   - Use `WebSearch` to find recent publications (if available)
   - Use `WebFetch` to access working paper repositories (if available)
   - Read any existing `.bib` file for papers already in the project

3. **Organize findings** into these categories:
   - **Theoretical contributions**, models, frameworks, mechanisms
   - **Empirical findings**, key results, effect sizes, data sources
   - **Methodological innovations**, new estimators, identification strategies, inference methods
   - **Open debates**, unresolved disagreements in the literature

4. **Identify gaps and opportunities:**
   - What questions remain unanswered?
   - What data or methods could address them?
   - Where do findings conflict?
   - **How independent is the support?** For any finding you call consistent or replicated, give
     the apparent count and the independent count, studies that share an experiment, dataset,
     sample or research team count once.
   - **What went the other way?** For each headline finding, search for null results and failed
     replications and report them, or say none were found and give the search terms used.

5. **Extract citations** in BibTeX format for all papers discussed.

6. **Save the report** to `quality_reports/lit_review_[sanitized_topic].md`

---

## Output Format

```markdown
# Literature Review: [Topic]

**Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Query:** [Original query from user]

## Summary

[2-3 paragraph overview of the state of the literature]

## Key Papers

The rest: https://github.com/pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow/blob/HEAD/.claude/skills/lit-review/SKILL.md