Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add kthorn/research-superpower --skill searching-literaturegit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/kthorn/research-superpowerWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/kthorn/research-superpower/searching-literature)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kthorn/research-superpower/searching-literature"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kthorn/research-superpower/searching-literature/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kthorn/research-superpower/searching-literature"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kthorn/research-superpower/searching-literature.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00017 | $0.01591 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00009 | $0.00796 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00003 | $0.00318 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00159 |
Grade A, and why
Searching Scientific Literature 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 12d 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 "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&term=BTK+inhibitor+selectivity&retmax=100&retmode=json&sort=relevance" How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 199 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Searching Scientific Literature
Overview
Search PubMed for scientific literature using optimized queries. Extract metadata and prepare papers for relevance evaluation.
Core principle: Cast a wide enough net to find relevant papers, but use targeted keywords to keep results manageable.
When to Use
Use this skill when:
- Starting a new research question
- User asks "find papers about..."
- Need initial paper set for evaluation
- Searching for specific methods, compounds, diseases, techniques
Search Strategy
1. Parse User Query
Extract:
- Keywords: Main concepts (e.g., "BTK inhibitor", "selectivity", "kinase")
- Data types: What user needs (IC50 values, methods, structures, results)
- Constraints: Date ranges, specific journals, author names
- Synonyms: Alternative terms (e.g., "Bruton's tyrosine kinase" = "BTK")
2. Construct PubMed Query
Boolean operators:
- AND - narrow results (must have both terms)
- OR - broaden results (either term)
- NOT - exclude terms
Example queries:
"BTK inhibitor"[Title/Abstract] AND selectivity[Title/Abstract]
("kinase inhibitor" OR "protein kinase") AND (selectivity OR "off-target")
"ibrutinib"[Title/Abstract] AND ("IC50" OR "inhibitory concentration")
Field tags:
[Title/Abstract]- search title and abstract only[Title]- title only (more precise)[Author]- specific author[Journal]- specific journal[Date]- date range
3. Execute Search
API endpoint:
https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?\
db=pubmed&\
term=YOUR_QUERY&\
retmax=100&\
retmode=json&\
sort=relevance
Parameters:
db=pubmed- search PubMed databaseterm=- your query (URL encode spaces and special chars)retmax=100- max results (start with 100)retmode=json- return JSONsort=relevance- most relevant first (orpub_datefor newest)
Example bash:
curl "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&term=BTK+inhibitor+selectivity&retmax=100&retmode=json&sort=relevance"
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.
- 12d ago First seen · 199 lines · 17 tokens per session scan A c7de90306b99
Searching Scientific Literature is a skill published in the GitHub repository kthorn/research-superpower (124 stars, last pushed 10mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 17 tokens to every session and 1,591 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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