Survey Generator Skill for Claude

Survey Generator

Provider-agnostic literature-survey artifact generator. Output flows into a pro-workflow wiki, not a standalone HTML file — survives sessions and indexes for FTS5 retrieval.

Diff vs dair-academy version

| dair | pro-workflow |

|------|--------------|

| Hardcoded Kimi K2.6 on Fireworks | Provider-agnostic (Anthropic/OpenAI/OpenRouter/Fireworks/custom) |

| Output = single-file HTML with inline SVG | Output = wiki markdown page + bibliography rows in sources.md |

| One-off artifact, no follow-up | Persists in FTS5 index; reused by wiki-research-loop |

| Manual run only | Composable with /wiki research for auto-bibliography expansion |

When to use

• "Survey on <topic>" / "lit review on <topic>"
• Onboarding a new domain — generate the map-of-the-field
• After a wiki has 10-30 sources, compile a synthesis page over them
• Pre-step before /wiki research runs: gives the loop a high-quality seed bundle

Inputs

| Input | Required | Description |

|-------|----------|-------------|

| topic | yes | "Reasoning Models", "Agentic Engineering" |

| source_url | yes | Public anchor: arXiv survey, GitHub awesome-list, canonical blog post |

| --wiki <slug> | yes | Target wiki for the artifact |

| --bibliography-size N | no | Default 20. 40-50 comprehensive, 80-100 exhaustive |

| --section-count N | no | Default 6-10 numbered sections |

| --provider name | no | Override provider (default: first env var found) |

| --model id | no | Override model |

Workflow (the agent runs these in order)

Step 1 — Read the anchor

WebFetch source_url. Extract subtopics + cited papers. For GitHub awesome-lists, walk README + linked papers files. For arXiv survey PDFs, use abstract + ToC.

Step 2 — Build research_bundle.json

Use templates/research_bundle.template.json as scaffold. Required keys:

{
  "topic": "...",
  "anchor_source": "...",
  "abstract_hints": ["..."],
  "taxonomy": [{"branch": "...", "children": [{"name": "...", "description": "..."}]}],
  "sections": [{"title": "...", "guidance": "...", "papers": ["key1","key2"]}],
  "bibliography": [{"key": "author-year-shortname", "authors": "...", "year": 2024, "title": "...", "venue": "...", "summary": "..."}]
}

Hard rules:

• Every paper in bibliography must be real. No invented entries.
• Every key referenced in sections[].papers must exist in bibliography.
• 4-8 taxonomy branches, 2-4 children each.
• 6-10 numbered sections covering: introduction → foundations → methods → evaluation → open problems.

Step 3 — Run the generator

node $SKILL_ROOT/scripts/build-survey.js \
  --bundle <path-to-research_bundle.json> \
  --wiki <slug> \
  [--provider anthropic|openai|openrouter|fireworks|custom] \
  [--model <id>]

Generator:

• Reads bundle.
• Sends to LLM with strict markdown spec (numbered sections, inline [^paper-key] citations, no HTML).
• Writes output to <wiki>/derived/surveys/<topic-slug>.md.
• Appends bibliography rows to <wiki>/sources.md (deduped by key).
• Calls wiki-cli.js page to upsert into FTS5 index.

Step 4 — Iterate

If prose is thin: tighten sections[].guidance and rerun. Output filename versions automatically (<slug>-v2.md, <slug>-v3.md).

To compare providers:

node build-survey.js --bundle bundle.json --wiki agent-memory --provider openai --model gpt-4o
node build-survey.js --bundle bundle.json --wiki agent-memory --provider anthropic --model claude-opus-4-7

Each writes a separate versioned file; diff them.

Output structure

<wiki-root>/
├── sources.md                                 # bibliography rows appended (deduped)
└── derived/surveys/
    └── <topic-slug>-v1.md                     # the survey
        # title (h1)
        # ## 1. Introduction
        # ## 2. Foundations
        # ...
        # ## References
        # [^src-bib-<slug>] author year. title. venue.

Hard rules

• Never invent bibliography entries — every paper must be a real work with venue.
• Every section's papers array references keys in bibliography.
• Output is markdown ONLY. No HTML, no inline SVG, no JS.
• Bibliography rows in sources.md use the slug-style id src-bib-<slug> (derived from the bibliography key); cite as [^src-bib-<slug>]. Manual non-bibliography sources continue to use src-NNN.
• Iterate on inputs (research_bundle.json), not on the generated output.
• Provider+model selection is the user's call — never hardcode.

Composing with research loop

/wiki init reasoning-models --title "Reasoning Models" --flavor research
# Manually compile a research_bundle.json
node skills/survey-generator/scripts/build-survey.js --bundle bundle.json --wiki reasoning-models
# Now the wiki has a structured survey + 50 bibliography rows
# Enable auto-research to expand:
# (edit reasoning-models/wiki.config.md, set auto_research.enabled: true)
node skills/wiki-research-loop/scripts/research-loop.js seed reasoning-models "chain-of-thought failure modes" --depth 0
node skills/wiki-research-loop/scripts/research-loop.js run reasoning-models