literature-search

literature-search is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from jxtse/scientific-research-skills. It costs 143 tokens per session (1,340 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A research tool for finding academic papers across sources such as Semantic Scholar and arXiv, which is a public repository for research preprints. It returns ranked, deduplicated results with paper details and links.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to find papers for topic surveys, recent preprints, related-work sections, author or venue searches, code implementations, and citation discovery.
Why use it?
It avoids searching each academic source separately and helps reduce duplicate or poorly matched results.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Needs its repository: it runs a file that does not travel with it, so clone the repository first. The line is node scripts/search/semantic-scholar.mjs "query" -n 20.

Good fit Use it to find papers for topic surveys, recent preprints, related-work sections, author or venue searches, code implementations, and citation discovery.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jxtse/scientific-research-skills
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/jxtse/scientific-research-skills/literature-search

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for literature-search

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jxtse/scientific-research-skills/literature-search/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/jxtse/scientific-research-skills/literature-search)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jxtse/scientific-research-skills/literature-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jxtse/scientific-research-skills/literature-search/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for literature-search

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jxtse/scientific-research-skills/literature-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jxtse/scientific-research-skills/literature-search.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 143 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,340 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. 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 $0.00143 $0.01340
Opus 5 $0.00072 $0.00670
Sonnet 5 $0.00029 $0.00268
Haiku 4.5 $0.00014 $0.00134

Measured 13d ago against content hash ab7cfdf23afa, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

literature-search scanned grade A with 0 findings 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 13d 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.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/literature-search/SKILL.md · 137 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 137 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Systematic, multi-engine academic paper search.

When to Use

  • User asks "find papers about X"
  • User needs related work for a new project
  • User wants to know the state of the art on a topic
  • User asks for papers from a specific venue/author/year

Engine Selection

Choose engines based on the search goal:

Goal Primary Engine Supplementary
Broad topic survey Semantic Scholar arXiv, Tavily
Latest preprints arXiv (sort by submittedDate) Semantic Scholar
Deep research / complex questions Gemini deep research Tavily + Exa
Specific paper by title Semantic Scholar Google Scholar (via Tavily)
Papers by author Semantic Scholar (author search) AMiner
Chinese research community AMiner Semantic Scholar
Industry/applied papers Tavily (deep) Exa semantic search
Social buzz / trending papers Twitter/X (xreach) Reddit
Code implementations GitHub (gh search) Exa (get_code_context)
Finding similar papers Exa (semantic) Semantic Scholar (citations)

Workflow

Step 1: Understand the Query

Before searching, clarify:

  • Scope: Broad survey vs. specific subtopic
  • Recency: All time vs. last N years vs. latest only
  • Venue preference: Top-tier only? Specific conference?
  • Quantity: Top 5 vs. comprehensive survey
  • Depth: Quick list vs. deep research with synthesis

Step 2: Select Search Strategy

Quick search (single engine): For simple, well-defined queries. Use Semantic Scholar or arXiv directly.

Multi-engine search (2-3 engines in parallel): For broader topics. Run engines simultaneously, deduplicate results.

Deep research (Gemini): For complex, multi-faceted research questions. Gemini deep research mode synthesizes across many sources and provides a structured analysis with citations. Use this when:

  • The question spans multiple subfields
  • You need synthesis, not just a list of papers
  • The user explicitly asks for "deep research" or "comprehensive survey"

Read the full file on GitHub · 137 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. 13d ago First seen · 137 lines · 143 tokens per session scan A ab7cfdf23afa

Subscribe to this mod's changes

literature-search is a skill published in the GitHub repository jxtse/scientific-research-skills (68 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 143 tokens to every session and 1,340 once invoked, about $0.0007 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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