Paper Map

Paper Map (Desktop)

Use this skill to maintain {vault}/00-Claude-Context/paper-map.md. It is the portable paper index -- a compact summary of the papers an active research thread is using, kept in the synced continuity folder so the next device can pick up the bibliographic state.

This is not the full library. The full library lives in 30_Literature/ and is queried by the lit-status skill. paper-map.md is a curated subset: just the papers the user is actively reasoning about, plus enough metadata for a fresh device to reorient.

Operating Rules

1. Write only to 00-Claude-Context/paper-map.md (and, if a claim shifts, also open-questions.md / decision-log.md / task-ledger.md per the schema). Never write outside 00-Claude-Context/.
2. Read 30_Literature/{citekey}.md and 00-Claude-Context/paper-map.md to collect data. Don't fetch papers -- that's paper-capture.
3. Keep entries compact and sortable by citekey. Don't delete useful prior context just because the user asked you to add a new paper.

What an entry looks like

## kim2023ionic

- Path: `30_Literature/kim2023ionic.md`
- Status: read | skimmed | unread | extracted | cited
- Main claim: Ion-gated synaptic transistors achieve memory-retention scaling
  proportional to ion residence time.
- Methods/data: WSe2 EDL transistor; pulsed I/V; 1 ns-10 ms regimes.
- Useful for: fading-memory characterization in active project.
- Caveats: Single-device measurements; no statistical population.
- Threads: [[#tau-c-trend]], [[#fading-memory-validation]]
- Tags: ion-gated, edl, memory, wse2

Citekey is the H2 anchor -- stable, never rename. If a paper's role in the research changes, edit the entry's Status / Useful for / Threads fields, don't move the heading.

Procedure

1. Read the current paper-map.md. Build an in-memory map of citekey -> entry.
2. Determine the operation:
   • Add -- user pasted a citekey or DOI; check the entry doesn't exist; fetch metadata from 30_Literature/{citekey}.md if available.
   • Update -- change Status / Useful for / Threads / Caveats based on what happened in this session.
   • Cross-link -- if an entry's Main claim conflicts with another, add a line to open-questions.md (or decision-log.md if the conflict is already resolved).
   • Rebuild -- user asked for a fresh build from 30_Literature/. Walk the directory, build entries for papers tagged with the active project (or all of them, if user said so), and replace the file body. Don't touch frontmatter.
3. Write the result back. Update frontmatter last_updated to UTC ISO 8601 and source_device to the active hostname slug.
4. Report one line: paper-map updated: +{n} added, ~{m} updated, total {N}.

When to escalate

• A paper's Main claim contradicts an entry already in decision-log.md -> surface to the user before writing.
• The user asks to delete an entry -> confirm explicitly. The continuity layer is biased toward append-only; deletions are rare and should be deliberate.
• 30_Literature/{citekey}.md is missing for a paper the user wants in the map -> suggest paper-capture {DOI} first; mark Status unread if user insists on adding without capturing.

What this skill does NOT do

• It does NOT replace lit-status for library-wide queries (counts, gaps, orphans). That skill reads 30_Literature/ directly.
• It does NOT download papers. That's paper-capture.
• It does NOT auto-sync -- Obsidian Sync / your sync provider does that. This skill just writes the file.