prior-art-search

prior-art-search is a skill for Claude Code from wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep. It costs 52 tokens per session (1,290 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A search workflow for finding earlier patents and academic papers related to an invention. In patent work, prior art means publicly available earlier work that can affect whether an invention qualifies for protection.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to search Google Patents, Espacenet, and academic literature, then analyse relevant patent and paper documents from the past ten years.
Why use it?
It reduces the chance of judging an invention without checking relevant earlier disclosures. The results provide material for later patentability and claim analysis.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Good fit Use it to search Google Patents, Espacenet, and academic literature, then analyse relevant patent and paper documents from the past ten years.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/wanshuiyin/auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/prior-art-search
About the project

ARIS is a collection of Markdown-based skills that define a workflow for autonomous machine-learning research, including idea discovery, experiment automation, and review loops. Researchers and AI coding agents use it across tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenClaw without depending on a single framework. The catalogue entries are ARIS workflow skills and agents.

wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep · 16,030 stars · on GitHub

Install

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.

Any agent
npx skills add wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep --skill prior-art-search
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep

Made for: Claude Code.

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 prior-art-search

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/wanshuiyin/auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/prior-art-search/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/wanshuiyin/auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/prior-art-search)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/wanshuiyin/auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/prior-art-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/wanshuiyin/auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/prior-art-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 prior-art-search

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/wanshuiyin/auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/prior-art-search"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/wanshuiyin/auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep/prior-art-search.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,290 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. Third-party audits
  • Socket pass 12 Apr 2026
  • Snyk warn 12 Apr 2026
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00052 $0.01290
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.00645
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00258
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00129

Measured 13d ago against content hash 8793fb26c522, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

prior-art-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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

skills/prior-art-search/SKILL.md · 147 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 147 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Search patents and literature for prior art relevant to: $ARGUMENTS

Adapted from /research-lit for patent-specific searching.

Constants

  • MAX_PATENT_RESULTS = 20 — Maximum patent documents to analyze in detail
  • MAX_PAPER_RESULTS = 15 — Maximum academic papers to analyze in detail
  • SEARCH_YEARS = 10 — How many years back to search
  • PATENT_DATABASES = "google-patents, espacenet" — Patent databases to search

Inputs

Read the invention description from:

  1. $ARGUMENTS if it contains technical details
  2. patent/INVENTION_BRIEF.md if it exists
  3. INVENTION_BRIEF.md if it exists at project root

Shared References

Load ../shared-references/prior-art-databases.md for search strategy templates and IPC/CPC classification guidance.

Workflow

Step 1: Extract Search Concepts

From the invention description, identify:

  1. Core inventive concept: The primary technical contribution (1-2 sentences)
  2. Technical problem: What problem it solves
  3. Key technical features: 4-6 specific technical elements that define the invention
  4. IPC/CPC classes: Predict relevant classification codes (e.g., G06N, G06F)

Step 2: Patent Search

For EACH search concept, search via:

Google Patents (via WebSearch):

WebSearch: "site:patents.google.com [keywords]"
WebSearch: "[keywords] patent"
  • Try primary keywords + technical problem keywords
  • Search in English regardless of target jurisdiction
  • For CN inventions, also search Chinese keywords via WebSearch

Espacenet (via WebFetch):

  • WebFetch worldwide.espacenet.com/search results for key queries
  • Search by predicted IPC/CPC classes

Assignee/Inventor Search:

  • If known companies/universities work in this area, search their patent portfolios
  • WebSearch: "[assignee name] patent [technical area]"

For each potentially relevant patent found:

  • WebFetch the patent page to extract: title, abstract, representative claims, filing date, assignee, current status
  • Record IPC/CPC classification codes

Read the full file on GitHub · 147 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 · 147 lines · 52 tokens per session scan A 8793fb26c522

Subscribe to this mod's changes

prior-art-search is a skill published in the GitHub repository wanshuiyin/Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep (16,030 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 1,290 once invoked, about $0.0003 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.