Orchestrate a multi-agent virtual academic reading group. Use when reading multiple papers, generating expert discussion notes, cross-examining positions across papers, and synthesizing integrated summaries with full citations. Triggers on requests to analyze academic literature, run paper discussions, create reading group sessions, or synthesize research across multiple sources. Supports 1-50 papers with configurable expert personas (1-4 papers work but produce simpler single-expert output).
Orchestrate parallel expert agents to read papers, discuss findings, challenge each other's interpretations, and synthesize an integrated discussion document with traceable citations.
Minimum inputs required:
Optional inputs:
references/default-personas.md)The skill runs 4 sequential phases. Each phase must complete before the next begins.
| Phase | Agents | Input | Output |
|---|
| 1. Paper Reading | N experts (parallel) | Papers + research question | {AuthorYear}_notes.md, {Expert}_session_summary.md |
| 2. Junior Discussion | 1 junior researcher | All Phase 1 outputs | {Junior}_discussion.md |
| 3. Expert Responses | N experts (parallel) | Phase 2 output + other experts' summaries | {Expert}_response_to_{Junior}.md |
| 4. Synthesis | 1 synthesizer | All previous outputs | Integrated_Discussion_Summary.md |
For detailed prompts and phase specifications: Read references/workflow.md.
⚠️ Important: The prompts below are abbreviated summaries. For full prompt templates that produce quality output, use
references/workflow.md. The pseudocode blocks show orchestration structure — adapt to your actual sub-agent spawning mechanism.
- Confirm research question is specified
- Confirm paper list is non-empty
- Confirm output directory exists or create it
- Load personas from user input or references/default-personas.md
Determine number of experts and paper batches:
if paper_count <= 4:
num_experts = 1
elif paper_count <= 10:
num_experts = 2
elif paper_count <= 20:
num_experts = min(4, ceil(paper_count / 5))