Assess research idea novelty through systematic literature search. Multi-round search-evaluate loops with harsh critic persona. Binary novel/not-novel decision with justification. Use before committing to a research direction.

Novelty Assessment Rigorously assess whether a research idea is novel through systematic literature search. Input $0 — Research idea description, title, or JSON file Scripts Automated novelty check Literature search References Assessment prompts and criteria: ~/.claude/skills/novelty assessment/references/assessment prompts.md Workflow Step 1: Understand the Idea Identify the core contribution List the key technical components Determine the research area and subfield Step 2: Multi Round Literature Search (up to 10 rounds) For each round: 1. Generate a targeted search query 2. Search Semantic Scholar / arXiv / OpenAlex 3. Review top 10 results with abstracts 4. Assess overlap with the idea 5. Decide: need more searching, or ready to decide Step 3: Make Decision Novel : After sufficient searching, no paper significantly overlaps Not Novel : Found a paper that significantly overlaps Step 4: Position the Idea If novel, identify: Most similar existing papers (for Related Work) How the idea differs from each The specific gap this idea fills Harsh Critic Persona Output Format Rules Minimum 3 search rounds before declaring novel Try to recall exact paper names for targeted queries A paper idea is NOT novel if it's a trivial extension Consider both methodology novelty AND application novelty Check for concurrent/recent arXiv submissions Related Skills Upstream: [literature search](../literature search/), [deep research](../deep research/) Downstream: [idea generation](../idea generation/), [research planning](../research planning/) See also: [related work writing](../related work writing/)

novelty-assessment