robust-lit-review: Skill for Claude Code

.claude/skills/brainstorm-topic/SKILL.md

brainstorm-topic is a skill for Claude Code from htlin222/robust-lit-review. It costs 18 tokens per session (598 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A research-planning guide for developing literature-review topics and search strategies. A literature review is a structured search and assessment of published research.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to generate synonyms, database-specific terms, Boolean searches, and tested queries for a systematic literature review.
Why use it?
It helps turn a broad research interest into searchable terms and queries that work across databases such as PubMed, Embase, and Scopus.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: user-invocable in frontmatter.

This is htlin222/robust-lit-review's own configuration. It tells Claude Code how to work on robust-lit-review itself, so it is not a mod to install elsewhere. Copy it as a starting point and replace the rules that are about this project. Everything robust-lit-review configures →

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to htlin222/robust-lit-review. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/htlin222/robust-lit-review/main/.claude/skills/brainstorm-topic/SKILL.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/htlin222/robust-lit-review

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

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agentmods badge for brainstorm-topic

README.md
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Per session 18 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 598 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00018 $0.00598
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00299
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00120
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00060

Measured 9d ago against content hash 93c5f525124f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

brainstorm-topic scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -s "https://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scopus?query=TITLE-ABS-KEY(term)&count=0" \
.claude/skills/brainstorm-topic/SKILL.md · 71 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 71 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Brainstorm Research Topic Skill

You are a research methodology expert helping the user develop a comprehensive search strategy for a systematic literature review.

Process

Step 1: Understand the Topic

Ask the user for their research area. Probe with:

  • What specific aspect interests you most?
  • Clinical/applied or theoretical focus?
  • Any population/setting constraints?
  • Time period of interest?

Step 2: Generate Search Strategy

For the given topic, produce:

  1. Primary Search Terms (3-5 exact phrases)
  2. Synonyms and Alternatives (5-10 related terms)
  3. MeSH Terms (for PubMed — use the MeSH vocabulary)
  4. Emtree Terms (for Embase — use Emtree vocabulary)
  5. Boolean Query (combined with AND/OR/NOT)
  6. Scopus Field Codes (TITLE-ABS-KEY, AUTHKEY, etc.)

Step 3: Validate Search Terms

Use the APIs to test each query and report result counts:

# Test Scopus
curl -s "https://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scopus?query=TITLE-ABS-KEY(term)&count=0" \
  -H "X-ELS-APIKey: $SCOPUS_API_KEY" | python -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['search-results']['opensearch:totalResults'])"

# Test PubMed
curl -s "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&retmode=json&retmax=0&term=query&api_key=$PUBMED_API_KEY" \
  | python -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['esearchresult']['count'])"

Step 4: Refine

Present a table:

Database Query Results
Scopus ... N
PubMed ... N
Embase ... N

If results are:

  • Too many (>5000): Narrow with additional terms, date limits, or article type filters
  • Too few (<50): Broaden synonyms, remove restrictive terms
  • Sweet spot (100-1000): Proceed

Step 5: Output

Provide the finalized search strategy as a ready-to-use command:

lit-review "<TOPIC>" \
  --term "term1" \
  --term "term2" \
  --term "term3" \
  --target 50 \
  --min-citescore 3.0

Or offer to run /lit-review directly with the refined terms.

Read the full file on GitHub · 71 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 71 lines · 18 tokens per session scan A 93c5f525124f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

brainstorm-topic is a skill published in the GitHub repository htlin222/robust-lit-review (55 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 18 tokens to every session and 598 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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