Paper-to-Agent Guide
A skill for transforming published research papers into interactive AI agents that can answer questions, explain methodology, and help replicate findings. Based on Paper2Agent (2K stars), this skill guides the agent through extracting structured knowledge from academic papers and creating conversational interfaces for deep exploration.
Overview
Traditional paper reading is linear and passive. Paper-to-Agent converts this into an active, queryable experience. By parsing a paper's structure, extracting key claims, methodology details, and results, the agent becomes an expert on that specific paper, ready to answer follow-up questions, explain complex sections, and connect findings to the broader literature.
This approach is especially valuable for interdisciplinary researchers who need to quickly understand papers outside their primary expertise, for journal clubs seeking deeper discussion, and for students learning to critically evaluate published research.
Paper Parsing Workflow
The agent should follow this structured workflow when converting a paper to an interactive agent:
Step 1: Structure Extraction
- Identify the paper's sections (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references)
- Extract the title, authors, affiliations, and publication venue
- Identify figure and table captions along with their referenced locations
- Note supplementary materials and their availability
- Detect the paper type (empirical, theoretical, review, meta-analysis)
Step 2: Claim Extraction
- Identify the primary research question or hypothesis
- Extract all major claims made in the paper
- Map each claim to its supporting evidence (data, citations, arguments)
- Note the strength of evidence for each claim (strong, moderate, suggestive)
- Identify limitations acknowledged by the authors
Step 3: Methodology Mapping
- Document the complete experimental or analytical pipeline
- Extract parameter values, dataset descriptions, and evaluation metrics
- Identify software tools and libraries used
- Note any preprocessing or data cleaning steps
- Map the methodology to established frameworks in the field
Interactive Exploration Capabilities
Once a paper has been parsed, the agent can support these interaction patterns:
Question-Answering
- Answer specific questions about the paper's content with source references
- Explain technical terms in context of how the paper uses them
- Compare the paper's approach to common alternatives
- Identify what the paper does and does not address
- Generate summaries at different levels of detail (tweet-length, abstract, detailed)
Critical Analysis
- Evaluate the validity of statistical analyses
- Identify potential confounds not addressed by the authors
- Assess whether conclusions follow from the presented evidence
- Compare results to related work in the field
- Suggest follow-up experiments that would strengthen the findings
Replication Assistance
- Generate step-by-step replication guides from the methods section
- Identify missing details needed for exact replication
- Suggest parameter ranges for robustness checks
- Create data collection templates based on the paper's design
- List required resources (compute, data, equipment) for replication
Knowledge Graph Construction
The skill supports building knowledge graphs from processed papers:
- Extract entities (methods, datasets, metrics, tools, concepts)
- Map relationships between entities (uses, extends, contradicts, supports)
- Link to external knowledge bases (OpenAlex, CrossRef, DOI)
- Track citation chains for key claims
- Identify research lineages and methodological evolution
Multi-Paper Analysis
When multiple papers have been processed, the agent can:
- Compare methodologies across papers addressing similar questions
- Identify consensus findings and areas of disagreement
- Trace the evolution of a research direction over time
- Build synthesis summaries combining evidence from multiple sources
- Detect gaps in the literature that no existing paper addresses
Integration with Research-Claw
This skill connects with other Research-Claw capabilities:
- Use literature search skills to find papers for processing
- Feed extracted knowledge into writing skills for literature reviews
- Connect methodology details to analysis skills for replication
- Store parsed papers in the local knowledge base for future reference
- Generate citation entries compatible with reference management tools
Practical Tips
- Start with the abstract and conclusion to determine if full parsing is worthwhile
- Focus deep extraction on methods and results sections for empirical papers
- For theoretical papers, prioritize definitions, theorems, and proof sketches
- Always verify extracted claims against the original text before presenting them
- Flag areas where the paper's writing is ambiguous or inconsistent
- Use the parsed representation to generate discussion questions for journal clubs
1---2name: paper-to-agent-guide3description: Transform research papers into interactive AI agents for exploration4---5
6# Paper-to-Agent Guide
7
8A skill for transforming published research papers into interactive AI agents that can answer questions, explain methodology, and help replicate findings. Based on Paper2Agent (2K stars), this skill guides the agent through extracting structured knowledge from academic papers and creating conversational interfaces for deep exploration.
9
10## Overview
11
12Traditional paper reading is linear and passive. Paper-to-Agent converts this into an active, queryable experience. By parsing a paper's structure, extracting key claims, methodology details, and results, the agent becomes an expert on that specific paper, ready to answer follow-up questions, explain complex sections, and connect findings to the broader literature.
13
14This approach is especially valuable for interdisciplinary researchers who need to quickly understand papers outside their primary expertise, for journal clubs seeking deeper discussion, and for students learning to critically evaluate published research.
15
16## Paper Parsing Workflow
17
18The agent should follow this structured workflow when converting a paper to an interactive agent:
19
20**Step 1: Structure Extraction**
21- Identify the paper's sections (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references)
22- Extract the title, authors, affiliations, and publication venue
23- Identify figure and table captions along with their referenced locations
24- Note supplementary materials and their availability
25- Detect the paper type (empirical, theoretical, review, meta-analysis)
26
27**Step 2: Claim Extraction**
28- Identify the primary research question or hypothesis
29- Extract all major claims made in the paper
30- Map each claim to its supporting evidence (data, citations, arguments)
31- Note the strength of evidence for each claim (strong, moderate, suggestive)
32- Identify limitations acknowledged by the authors
33
34**Step 3: Methodology Mapping**
35- Document the complete experimental or analytical pipeline
36- Extract parameter values, dataset descriptions, and evaluation metrics
37- Identify software tools and libraries used
38- Note any preprocessing or data cleaning steps
39- Map the methodology to established frameworks in the field
40
41## Interactive Exploration Capabilities
42
43Once a paper has been parsed, the agent can support these interaction patterns:
44
45**Question-Answering**
46- Answer specific questions about the paper's content with source references
47- Explain technical terms in context of how the paper uses them
48- Compare the paper's approach to common alternatives
49- Identify what the paper does and does not address
50- Generate summaries at different levels of detail (tweet-length, abstract, detailed)
51
52**Critical Analysis**
53- Evaluate the validity of statistical analyses
54- Identify potential confounds not addressed by the authors
55- Assess whether conclusions follow from the presented evidence
56- Compare results to related work in the field
57- Suggest follow-up experiments that would strengthen the findings
58
59**Replication Assistance**
60- Generate step-by-step replication guides from the methods section
61- Identify missing details needed for exact replication
62- Suggest parameter ranges for robustness checks
63- Create data collection templates based on the paper's design
64- List required resources (compute, data, equipment) for replication
65
66## Knowledge Graph Construction
67
68The skill supports building knowledge graphs from processed papers:
69
70- Extract entities (methods, datasets, metrics, tools, concepts)
71- Map relationships between entities (uses, extends, contradicts, supports)
72- Link to external knowledge bases (OpenAlex, CrossRef, DOI)
73- Track citation chains for key claims
74- Identify research lineages and methodological evolution
75
76## Multi-Paper Analysis
77
78When multiple papers have been processed, the agent can:
79
80- Compare methodologies across papers addressing similar questions
81- Identify consensus findings and areas of disagreement
82- Trace the evolution of a research direction over time
83- Build synthesis summaries combining evidence from multiple sources
84- Detect gaps in the literature that no existing paper addresses
85
86## Integration with Research-Claw
87
88This skill connects with other Research-Claw capabilities:
89
90- Use literature search skills to find papers for processing
91- Feed extracted knowledge into writing skills for literature reviews
92- Connect methodology details to analysis skills for replication
93- Store parsed papers in the local knowledge base for future reference
94- Generate citation entries compatible with reference management tools
95
96## Practical Tips
97
98- Start with the abstract and conclusion to determine if full parsing is worthwhile
99- Focus deep extraction on methods and results sections for empirical papers
100- For theoretical papers, prioritize definitions, theorems, and proof sketches
101- Always verify extracted claims against the original text before presenting them
102- Flag areas where the paper's writing is ambiguous or inconsistent
103- Use the parsed representation to generate discussion questions for journal clubs
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