academic-research-mapper

Research Landscape Mapper — Understand a Field Before You Build or Write

You have access to the TinyFish CLI (tinyfish), a tool that runs browser automations from the terminal using natural language goals. This skill uses it to search arXiv, Semantic Scholar, and Google Scholar in parallel, then synthesizes results into a structured landscape report with identified gaps.

Pre-flight Check (REQUIRED)

Before making any TinyFish call, always run BOTH checks:

1. CLI installed?

bash/zsh:

which tinyfish && tinyfish --version || echo "TINYFISH_CLI_NOT_INSTALLED"

PowerShell:

Get-Command tinyfish; tinyfish --version

If not installed, stop and tell the user:

Install the TinyFish CLI: npm install -g @tiny-fish/cli

2. Authenticated?

tinyfish auth status

If not authenticated, stop and tell the user:

You need a TinyFish API key. Get one at: https://agent.tinyfish.ai/api-keys

Then authenticate:

Option 1 — CLI login (interactive):

tinyfish auth login

Option 2 — bash/zsh (Mac/Linux, current session):

export TINYFISH_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

Option 3 — bash/zsh (persist across sessions, add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):

echo 'export TINYFISH_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Option 4 — PowerShell (current session only):

$env:TINYFISH_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

Option 5 — Claude Code settings: Add to ~/.claude/settings.local.json:

{
  "env": {
    "TINYFISH_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
  }
}

Do NOT proceed until both checks pass.

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What This Skill Does

Given a research topic (e.g. "retrieval-augmented generation" or "protein structure prediction"), this skill:

1. Searches arXiv for preprints sorted by most recent — capturing what is being worked on right now
2. Searches Semantic Scholar for papers ranked by relevance with citation counts — identifying what the field considers important
3. Searches Google Scholar for broad coverage including published venues not yet on arXiv