Conduct a literature review across papers in the library. Takes a research question, finds relevant papers, reads them in parallel via subagents, and synthesizes findings with cross-paper comparisons and citations.
Conduct a literature review on: $ARGUMENTS
search_library with the query "$ARGUMENTS" to search metadata,
keywords, and summaries.search_paper_text to search full text for relevant passages.If no papers are found, tell the user and suggest adding papers with
/add-paper. Stop here.
For each relevant paper, launch a general-purpose subagent using the Task
tool. Launch all subagents in a single message so they run concurrently.
Each subagent prompt should be (fill in bibtex_key and the research question):
Read the paper with bibtex key "{bibtex_key}" using the read_paper MCP tool
and extract information relevant to this research question: "{question}"
IMPORTANT: Only report findings, methods, and claims that appear in the
paper text returned by read_paper. Do not supplement with outside knowledge
about this paper or its authors. If a section is missing or illegible, say so.
Every claim must be traceable to specific text you read.
read_paper with bibtex_key, start_line=1, end_line=500 to get
the first chunk and total line count.read_paper for all remaining
chunks in parallel (500-line chunks).Once all subagents return, synthesize their findings into a coherent review:
Overview: 2-3 sentence summary of what the literature says about the research question.
Key findings by theme: Group findings across papers by theme rather than paper-by-paper. For each theme:
Methodological approaches: Compare how different papers approach the question. Note differences in data, measurement, identification, etc.
Gaps and open questions: What aspects of the research question are not well-addressed by the available papers? What contradictions remain unresolved?
Paper-level details: A brief table or list of each paper reviewed with its bibtex key, main contribution, and relevance to the question.
ingest_paper
only saves metadata — to also get the PDF, call download_paper with the
bibtex key after ingesting.