Create Literature Note
SkillDocs & knowledgeCreates a structured annotation note in references/ with sections for research question, data, findings, and relevance. Use when documenting a paper.
Use Create Literature Note in Claude, ChatGPT or Ahel Desktop
Free. Sign in, add Create Literature Note and connect your AI. About a minute.
Also: Claude Code · Cursor · Codex
Then ask your AI: use the Create Literature Note skill
Details
Instructions available. Your AI can read the instructions. Execution depends on the setup they require.
Account requirements not reviewed. Check the skill instructions before use; ahel provides instructions and does not run this skill.
No other account needed.
Add ahel to your AI once: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. Then ask it to use this.
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by brycewang-stanford/auto-empirical-research-skills in skills/29-quarcs-lab-project20XXy/dot-claude/skills/literature-note/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
Create a structured annotation note for a paper in references/.
Arguments
$ARGUMENTS— a citation key fromreferences.bib, a DOI, or a paper description (e.g., "acemoglu2001colonial" or "Acemoglu 2001 colonial origins")
Steps
-
Parse the argument:
- If it matches an existing key in
references.bib, use that entry's metadata - If it is a DOI or description, search for the paper and optionally add it to
references.bibfirst (offer to run the/project:citeworkflow)
- If it matches an existing key in
-
If a URL or DOI is provided, attempt to fetch and read the paper to extract key information.
-
Create a Markdown file in
references/named<citation-key>.mdwith this structure:# <Author (Year)> — <Short Title> **Citation key:** `<key>` **Full reference:** <formatted reference> ## Research Question [What question does this paper address?] ## Identification Strategy [How do the authors establish causality? What is the main source of variation?] ## Data and Sample [What data do they use? What is the sample period, unit of observation, and sample size?] ## Key Findings - [Finding 1] - [Finding 2] - [Finding 3] ## Methodology Notes [Econometric methods, estimators, robustness checks worth noting] ## Relevance to This Project [How does this paper relate to the current research? What can we build on or contrast with?] -
If information about the paper was retrieved (from the web or a PDF), pre-fill the sections with extracted content. Otherwise, leave the bracket placeholders for the user to fill in.
-
Report the file path and remind the user to fill in any remaining placeholder sections.
Error handling
- If the citation key is not found in
references.biband cannot be resolved, ask the user for more details. - If
references/<key>.mdalready exists, show the existing note and ask if the user wants to update it.
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 4k
- Forks
- 531
- Last commit
- Sep 2026
Advanced
- Item type
- skill
- Key
literature-note- Source
- github.com/brycewang-stanford/auto-empirical-research-skills
github.com/brycewang-stanford/auto-empirical-research-skills
Related picks
Skill · agricidaniel
The pick for Markdownmarkdown-formatter
Skill · nvidia
The pick for Markdowngolden-pdf-ch
Skill · yusufkaraaslan
The pick for PDFpdf-co-automation
Skill · composio-community
The pick for PDFacademic-paper-composer
Skill · brycewang-stanford
The pick for Academic03-academic-writing
Skill · 24kchengye
The pick for Academic