Agent skill · research science · sundial-org
literature-review
Assistance with writing literature reviews by searching for academic sources via Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref and PubMed APIs. Use when the user needs to find papers on a topic, get details for specific DOIs, or draft sections of a literature review with proper citations.
Why this skill is useful
Adds executable scripts for multi-source academic literature searches and synthesis that the AI cannot generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires python3 installed locally. Requires crossref, openalex, pubmed, semantic_scholar account access. About 2k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-03-07. 639 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Literature Review Help write academic literature reviews using a multi-engine search integration (S2, OA, CR, PM). Capabilities Multi-Source Search: Find relevant academic papers using Semantic Scholar (S2), OpenAlex (OA), Crossref (CR), and PubMed (PM). Full Abstracts: All sources now return complete abstracts (PubMed uses efetch for full XML records). DOI Extraction: DOIs are extracted from all sources for cross-referencing and deduplication. Automatic Deduplication: When searching multiple sources (--source all or --source both), results are automatically deduplicated by DOI. Polite Access: Automatic email identification for OpenAlex/Crossref "Polite Pool" (via USEREMAIL env var). Abstract Reconstruction: Reconstructs abstracts from OpenAlex inverted index format. Synthesis: Group papers by theme and draft review sections based on metadata. Environment Variables Variable Purpose Default ---------- --------- --------- USEREMAIL Email for polite API access anonymous@example.org CLAWDBOTEMAIL Fallback if USEREMAIL not set — SEMANTICSCHOLARAPIKEY Optional S2 API key for higher rate limits — OPENALEXAPIKEY Optional OpenAlex API key — Workflows 1. Broad Search (All Bases) Get a comprehensive overview from all major academic databases. Results are automatically deduplicated by DOI. 2. Targeted Search OpenAlex (oa): Fast and comprehensive, good abstracts. Semantic Scholar (s2): High-quality citation data and TL;DRs. Crossref (cr): Precise DOI-based metadata (no abstracts). PubMed (pm): Gold standard for biomedical research, full abstracts and PMIDs. 3. Comparing Sources Search both S2 and OA simultaneously to ensure nothing is missed. Deduplicated by default. 4. Getting Full Details (S2) Retrieve detailed metadata including TL;DR summaries. 5. Writing the Review 1. Extract: Pull key findings from the abstracts found. 2. Organize: Group findings into a logical structure (e.g., chronological or thematic). 3. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills sundial-org/literature-review