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write-survey

write-survey

github.com/vincenzoimpProductivity472 installsUpdated 14w ago
Repository

About write-survey

write-survey is a research workflow skill for creating or maintaining a detailed LaTeX survey from a project's SOTA paper syntheses. It organizes papers by themes, integrates comparisons and research gaps, and validates coverage and builds.

Key features

  1. 01Create or update a LaTeX survey
  2. 02Group papers by themes and methods
  3. 03Integrate paper comparisons
  4. 04Identify gaps and research directions
  5. 05Track covered citekeys
  6. 06Build and validate the survey

Use cases

  1. 01Create a survey from digested papers
  2. 02Integrate newly added papers
  3. 03Remove excluded papers from a survey
  4. 04Check survey coverage and build output

Install

Copy the command and run it in a terminal.

$npx skills add https://github.com/vincenzoimp/academic-research-skills --skill write-survey

After installing, type/write-surveyin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.

Bundled filesreferences/survey-content.md

Details

From the project README

Write Survey

Produce or maintain survey/survey.tex: the single, complete, detailed reading reference for the whole SOTA. After reading the survey, nobody should need to reopen syntheses or PDFs for the large majority of questions.

Read First

  • survey/README.md — the survey contract
  • sota/index.md — what the SOTA currently contains
  • survey/coverage.md — what the survey currently integrates
  • references/survey-content.md — content checklist and style

The survey renders citations author-year (biblatex style=authoryear, per survey/README.md) — a discursive review reads better than numbered [1].

Mode Selection

  • survey/coverage.md lists no citekeys → create mode.
  • Otherwise → update mode. The user can force a full rewrite, which is create mode.

Create Mode

  1. Hard gate: read every synthesis. List all digested citekeys from sota/index.md, read every sota/papers/<citekey>/synthesis.md, and confirm the count matches before writing a single word of survey prose.
  2. Design the grouping from what was read: themes, concepts, methodologies — whatever organization fits this SOTA best. Write the outline as LaTeX section comments first.
  3. Write section by section: per group, discuss each paper's contributions and notable aspects in depth, compare approaches, name tensions and contradictions. Respect each synthesis's "Safe claims / do-not-claim" section. Cite with \cite{<citekey>} only; every key resolves in the root references.bib.
  4. Write the mandatory final content section, Gaps and Research Directions, grounded in the full picture per references/survey-content.md.
  5. Fill survey/coverage.md with every integrated citekey.
  6. Build (make survey) and validate (make check). Fix all errors.

Update Mode

  1. Diff: to_add = digested keys in sota/index.md missing from coverage.md; to_remove = covered keys now excluded or gone.
  2. Read the syntheses of to_add and the survey sections they belong to.
  3. Integrate additions into the right groups — extend or restructure a group when the new papers change its internal logic; never just append.
  4. Excise removals: delete their discussion, repair comparisons and transitions that referenced them, re-check the gaps section.
  5. Update coverage.md, rebuild, run make check.

Rules

  • Every statement about a paper is supported by its synthesis (or its PDF when more depth is needed) — never by model memory.
  • The survey is self-contained: detailed enough to replace re-reading the SOTA for most purposes. No length limit; completeness wins.
  • Never edit references.bib from this skill: a missing entry means the SOTA work is incomplete — stop and report.

Done When

  • coverage.md equals the set of digested citekeys (or the user-approved subset), survey.pdf is rebuilt, make check passes

Comments

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