idea-generation

Idea Generation

Don't ask permission. Just do it.

Generate innovative research ideas grounded in literature analysis. This skill reads existing papers, identifies research gaps, and produces 5 distinct ideas with citations.

Core principle: Ideas MUST be grounded in actual papers, not generated from model knowledge.

Outputs go to ideas/.

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Step 1: Check Workspace Resources

First, check what resources already exist:

ls papers/ 2>/dev/null | head -20
ls knowledge/ 2>/dev/null

Assess Available Resources

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Step 2: Ask User About Search Strategy

Based on workspace state, ask user:

If papers exist (≥5):

📚 Found {N} papers in workspace from previous survey.

Options:

1. Use existing papers - Generate ideas from current collection
2. Search more - Run /research-collect to expand collection
3. Quick search - Add 5-10 more papers on specific topic

If no papers:

📭 No papers found in workspace.

To generate grounded ideas, I need literature. Options:

1. Run /research-collect - Comprehensive search (100+ papers, recommended)
2. Quick search - Fetch 10-15 papers on your topic now
3. You provide papers - Point me to existing PDFs/tex files

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Step 3: Acquire Resources (if needed)

Option A: Delegate to /research-collect (Recommended)

If user wants comprehensive search:

Please run: /research-collect {topic}

This will:
- Search 100+ papers systematically
- Filter by relevance (score ≥4)
- Cluster into research directions
- Save to papers/

After survey completes, run /idea-generation again.

Option B: Quick Search (5-10 papers)

For fast iteration, do minimal search:

1. Search papers:

arxiv_search({ query: "{user_topic}", max_results: 10 })
openalex_search({ query: "{user_topic}", max_results: 10 })

2. Download papers: 按 /paper-download 的方式下载到 papers/

3. Clone reference repos (optional):

gh search repos "{paper_title} implementation" --limit 5 --sort stars
git clone --depth 1 {repo_url} repos/{name}

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Step 4: Analyze Literature

Prerequisites: At least 5 papers in papers/

4.1 Read Papers

For each paper, extract:

• Core contribution (1 sentence)
• Key method/formula
• Limitations mentioned
• Future work suggestions

Long papers (>50KB): See references/reading-long-papers.md

4.2 Identify Research Gaps

Look for:

• Common limitations across papers
• Unexplored technique combinations
• Scalability issues
• Assumptions that could be relaxed

Document gaps in ideas/gaps.md:

# Research Gaps Identified

## Gap 1: [Description]
- Mentioned in: [paper1], [paper2]
- Why important: ...

## Gap 2: [Description]
...

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Step 5: Generate 5 Ideas

Create ideas/idea_1.md through idea_5.md using template in references/idea-template.md.

Requirements:

• Each idea cites ≥2 papers by arXiv ID
• Use different strategies:

❌ REJECTED if: No arXiv IDs cited, or ideas not grounded in literature

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Step 6: Select and Enhance Best Idea

6.1 Score All Ideas

6.2 Enhance Selected Idea

Create ideas/selected_idea.md with:

• Detailed math (loss functions, gradients)
• Architecture choices
• Hyperparameters
• Implementation roadmap

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Step 7: Code Survey

Map idea concepts to reference implementations.

See references/code-mapping.md for template.

Output: ideas/implementation_report.md

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Step 8: Summary

Create ideas/summary.md:

• All 5 ideas with scores
• Selected idea details
• Next steps: /research-pipeline to implement

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Commands

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Integration

• Before: /research-collect to collect papers
• After: /research-pipeline to implement selected idea
• Alternative: /write-review-paper to write survey instead