Academic Research Skills for Agents

Academic research skills cover the full evidence workflow: sharpening a research question until it is narrow enough to finish, mapping the literature to see what is already known and where your work sits, designing a method that could actually falsify you, collecting the observations that method calls for, turning those observations into findings, and building an argument a peer can check with sources attached. A skill in this topic usually targets one stage rather than the whole pipeline, so start by naming the stage where you are stuck. Then read the ranked list with that stage in mind and pick the skill whose scope matches your next concrete step, not the one that sounds broadest. If two look close, choose the one that fits the stage you are in right now.

8 to start with31 top options

Start with these.

Academic research is an evidence workflow: question, literature, method, collect, analyze, then argue with citations.

These are the closest matches for this work. Start with the first one and open it to install.

What you are actually trying to find out, narrowly enough to finish.What is already known, and where this work sits.How you will generate evidence that could falsify you.Gather the observations the method called for.Turn observations into findings. A sub-problem of this domain with no skills yet.A claim a peer can check, with sources attached.

31 top options

  1. Rank 04
    Direct

    academic-pipeline

    Orchestrates the full academic research pipeline from research through writing, integrity checks, two-stage peer review, revision, and finalization across a 10-stage workflow.

    • Method
    6,661 · popularity
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  2. Rank 05
    Direct

    literature-review

    Systematic literature review workflow covering search planning, source screening, deduplication, data extraction, synthesis, and citation verification with an evidence log.

    • Literature
    • Argument & citation
    6,447 · popularity
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  3. Rank 06
    Direct

    firecrawl-research-index

    Finds papers answering a research query in Firecrawl's research paper index (PubMed, bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv) using semantic search, semantic/structural expansion, and in-body verification.

    • Collection
    • Argument & citation
    22,612 · popularity
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  4. Rank 07
    Direct

    academic-search

    Helps navigate academic literature: formulates search queries, recommends databases, analyzes abstracts, explains methodologies, and structures literature reviews.

    • Research question
    • Literature
    • Method
    5,583 · popularity
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  5. Rank 08
    Direct

    nature-citation

    Finds and verifies Nature/CNS-family literature supporting manuscript claims, mapping claims to sources and exporting reference-manager files for citation.

    • Method
    • Argument & citation
    13,940 · popularity
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Explore 23 more Agent Skills
  1. Rank 09
    Direct

    academic-paper-reviewer

    Simulates a multi-perspective international journal peer review with dynamic reviewer personas, producing structured review reports, an editorial decision, and a revision roadmap.

    • Method
    9,151 · popularity
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  2. Rank 10
    Direct

    nature-writing

    Drafts or restructures scientific manuscript arguments, sections, and initial-submission materials from author-provided evidence, with paper-type and journal-specific guidance.

    • Research question
    • Literature
    • Method
    13,796 · popularity
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  3. Rank 11
    Direct

    nature-polishing

    Polishes, translates, or tightens existing academic prose while preserving facts, terminology, and evidence boundaries, with journal- and section-specific guidance for manuscript writing.

    • Research question
    • Method
    • Collection
    15,558 · popularity
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  4. Rank 12
    Direct

    nature-literature-pipeline

    Automated literature discovery pipeline: multi-source search, six-dimension scoring, fine reading, formatted delivery, and archival, with cron-driven daily digests.

    • Research question
    • Method
    • Argument & citation
    10,260 · popularity
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  5. Rank 13
    Direct

    scholar-evaluation

    Evaluates academic papers, proposals, and literature reviews against a reproducible rubric covering problem, literature, methodology, evidence, analysis, and citations.

    • Method
    5,761 · popularity
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  6. Rank 14
    Direct

    nature-reader

    Creates source-grounded Chinese-English paper readers with aligned text, figures, tables, and equations, and answers source-linked questions about a paper.

    • Method
    • Argument & citation
    13,142 · popularity
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  7. Rank 15
    Direct

    nature-downloader

    Routes literature through lawful open-access, publisher-API, CNKI institutional, and browser-based providers to download academic full text and supporting information.

    Needs (stated): Credentials · Python · Node.js

    10,335 · popularity
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  8. Rank 16
    Direct

    ljg-paper

    Explains research papers to readers without specialist background, covering what the paper studies, its contributions, how findings follow, and what the evidence does not establish.

    6,802 · popularity
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  9. Rank 17
    Possible

    ai-research-explore

    Notable

    Rigor Explore compatible skill slug for meaningful and potentially novel deep learning research candidates. Use when the researcher has chosen the task family, dataset, benchmark, evaluation method, provided SOTA references, and wants candidate-only exploration on top of `current_research` with auditable repo understanding, idea gating, fair comparison, and governed experiments written to `explore_outputs/`. Do not use for README-first trusted reproduction, open-ended direction finding, narrow code-only or run-only exploration, passive repo analysis, verified novelty claims, or implicit experi

    • Collection
    311,248 · popularity
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  10. Rank 18
    Possible

    ai-research-reproduction

    Notable

    Rigor Reproduce compatible skill slug for README-first deep learning repository reproduction. Use when the user wants an end-to-end, minimal-trustworthy flow that reads the repository first, selects the smallest documented inference or evaluation target, coordinates intake, setup, trusted execution, optional trusted training, optional repository analysis, and optional paper-gap resolution, enforces conservative patch rules, records evidence assumptions deviations and human decision points, and writes the standardized `repro_outputs/` bundle. Do not use for paper summary, generic environment se

    • Research question
    • Method
    • Collection
    310,973 · popularity
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  11. Rank 19
    Possible

    analyze-project

    Notable

    Rigor Analyze / Rigor Audit read-only skill for deep learning research repositories. Use when the user wants to read and understand a repository, inspect model structure and training or inference entrypoints, review configs and insertion points, or flag suspicious implementation patterns without modifying code or running heavy jobs. Do not use for active command execution, broad refactoring, speculative code adaptation, or automatic bug fixing.

    311,025 · popularity
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  12. Rank 20
    Possible

    research

    Notable

    Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or reading legwork delegated to a background agent.

    516,314 · popularity
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  13. Rank 21
    Possible

    deep-research

    Notable

    Courses whose content rests on current, external or real-world facts that must be verified against live sources before being taught — recent events, market or policy data, product and version specifics, scientific developments, named cases. Researches the topic first, keeps a claim-to-source ledger, and grounds the outline and every page in what was actually fetched. Use when the request depends on up-to-date or externally checkable facts; not for timeless textbook topics that stand on established knowledge alone.

    • Research question
    View Agent Skill
  14. Rank 22
    Possible

    firecrawl

    Notable

    Any live-web task via the Firecrawl CLI — including ordinary web research: searching the web, reading or extracting pages, gathering sources, discovering site URLs, bulk extraction, downloading a site, change alerts, or pages needing clicks/login — web only; local files route to firecrawl-parse. For papers use firecrawl-research-index; for library, API, error, or bug questions use firecrawl-developer-index.

    101,924 · popularity
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  15. Rank 23
    Possible

    firecrawl-search

    Notable

    Find web sources with query-relevant page excerpts and optional full-page content, and discover workflows, data APIs, and indexes. Use for web research or finding structured records, listings, transcripts, and datasets. Supports semantic tool discovery, domain matching, and progressive catalogue browsing.

    83,108 · popularity
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  16. Rank 24
    Possible

    notion-research-documentation

    Official

    Research across Notion and synthesize into structured documentation; use when gathering info from multiple Notion sources to produce briefs, comparisons, or reports with citations.

    • Argument & citation
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  17. Rank 25
    Possible

    wiki-researcher

    Official

    Conducts multi-turn iterative deep research on specific topics within a codebase with zero tolerance for shallow analysis. Use when the user wants an in-depth investigation, needs to understand how something works across multiple files, or asks for comprehensive analysis of a specific system or pattern.

    • Argument & citation
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  18. Rank 26
    Possible

    discernment-nudge

    Official

    > After you give a substantive answer or draft that the user may act on — advice or recommendations, drafted artifacts such as goals, plans, pitches, proposals, or emails, estimates or projections, analysis or interpretation of data, factual claims they may rely on, or a multi-step argument — invoke this skill BEFORE finalizing your reply and then, if it applies, append 2-3 short follow-up questions, each tied to something specific in what you just produced, that help the user check key facts, probe the reasoning or assumptions, and notice missing context. Do this at most once per conversation. Skip it when the user asked a trivial how-to or simple lookup, wants a purely educational explanation, asked you only to format, convert, or assemble a file from content they provided, is writing code they will run, is doing creative writing or casual chat, or already asked you to double-check, cite, or review — the skill file explains these boundaries and the exact output format.

    View Agent Skill
  19. Rank 27
    Possible

    firecrawl-workflows

    Run outcome-focused Firecrawl workflows that produce deliverables such as research reports, literature reviews over published papers, SEO audits, QA reports, lead lists, knowledge bases, website design systems, and other structured web-data artifacts. Use when the user wants Firecrawl to complete a…

    32,186 · popularity
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  20. Rank 28
    Possible

    cross-critique

    Run a second round on a contested question by circulating each subagent's independent proposal to the other authors and asking for structured pros and cons, then synthesize. Use this skill whenever you have multiple independent proposals or opinions on a contested decision — architecture tradeoffs,…

    20,852 · popularity
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  21. Rank 29
    Possible

    nature-paper2ppt

    Create or improve a Chinese academic PPTX from a scientific paper or research reading notes, with source figures and speaker notes. Use for 论文做PPT、文献汇报、组会PPT and paper-based conference or defense presentations.

    • Method
    14,270 · popularity
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  22. Rank 30
    Possible

    bmad-deep-recon

    Research a topic to support a decision, three ways: draft a research prompt for the user to run in their own tool (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity, …), turn a finished research report into a short summary with cited sources that other skills can use directly, or run the research here with…

    • Literature
    7,000 · popularity
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  23. Rank 31
    Possible

    valyu-best-practices

    Complete Valyu API toolkit for AI agents. Use this skill when asked to perform real-time search across web, academic, medical, transportation, financial sources, content extraction from URLs, AI-powered answers with citations, or comprehensive deep research reports.

    Needs (stated): API key · Network access

    3,274 · popularity
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What this topic covers

What this topic covers

Each sub-topic groups Agent Skills for a specific situation.

Research question
What you are actually trying to find out, narrowly enough to finish.
Literature
What is already known, and where this work sits.
Method
How you will generate evidence that could falsify you.
Collection
Gather the observations the method called for.
Analysis
Turn observations into findings.
Argument & citation
A claim a peer can check, with sources attached.
Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions

Which stage of a research project do these skills actually help with?
They span the whole evidence workflow: research question, literature, method, collection, analysis, and argument and citation. Most skills concentrate on a single stage, so identify your current bottleneck before browsing. A literature skill will not fix a method problem.
How is the list ordered?
It is ranked by observed search demand, with direct matches to this topic placed first. The ranking also caps how many skills any single publisher can occupy, so one prolific author cannot fill the page.
Can one skill carry a project from question to citation?
The workflow runs question, literature, method, collect, analyze, then argue with citations, and that is a lot of ground for one package. Expect to combine skills across stages rather than rely on a single one. Pick per stage as your project moves forward.
Where should I start if my research question is still vague?
Begin with the question stage, since a question narrow enough to finish shapes everything downstream. Literature and method choices depend on it. Once it is settled, move to the literature stage to see where the work sits.

How to install an Agent Skill

Start with the first skill on this page. Claude Code reads a SKILL.md once it is in the skills directory:

  • Claude Code — copy the SKILL.md for nature-academic-search into ~/.claude/skills/nature-academic-search/ for yourself, or .claude/skills/nature-academic-search/ to share it with a project.
  • From the registry — run npx skills add yuan1z0825/nature-skills@nature-academic-search.
  • Or download nature-academic-search from its source and place that SKILL.md in the directory above.

How to choose Check the source and the skill’s own instructions before you install. Official and Notable describe where a skill comes from.