Paper Related Works

paper_related_works

Given an academic paper, build a comprehensive related-works map covering both predecessors (papers it cites) and successors (papers that cite it or build on it).

When to Use

• User provides a paper (arXiv link, PDF, paper ID, or title)
• User wants to understand what a paper builds on
• User wants to find follow-up work or improvements
• User wants to trace a line of research

Workflow

Step 1: Identify the Paper

Parse the paper from user input (arXiv URL, ID, title, PDF path).

Use AlphaXiv skill to read the paper (always try this first):

1. Extract paper ID from input (see AlphaXiv skill for ID parsing rules)
2. Fetch machine-readable report:

   WebFetch: https://alphaxiv.org/overview/{PAPER_ID}.md
   

3. If report lacks detail on references, fetch full text:

   WebFetch: https://alphaxiv.org/abs/{PAPER_ID}.md
   

4. If both 404, fall back to reading the PDF directly

Extract the full paper content for the walkthrough and related works analysis.

Step 2: Paper Walkthrough

Write a structured walkthrough of the paper. This goes at the top of the final report.

2a. Background & Problem

• What problem does the paper address?
• Why is it important? (real-world motivation, limitations of prior work)
• What gap in existing methods does it target?

2b. Motivation & Key Insight

• What is the core insight or observation that drives the approach?
• What makes this paper's angle different from prior attempts?
• Any motivating examples or failure cases of existing methods?

2c. Method

• High-level approach (1-2 paragraphs, not full math)
• Architecture diagram or pipeline description
• Key design choices and why they matter
• Core algorithm steps (numbered list or pseudocode if helpful)
• Important hyperparameters or training details

2d. Results Overview

• Main benchmarks and datasets used
• Key quantitative results (table format):

| Method | Benchmark | Metric | Value |
|--------|-----------|--------|-------|
| This paper | ... | ... | ... |
| Best baseline | ... | ... | ... |

• Most important ablation findings
• Qualitative results or visualizations (describe key figures)

2e. Limitations & Future Work

• Limitations acknowledged by the authors
• Limitations you observe (not mentioned in paper)
• Future directions proposed by the authors
• Open questions that remain

Step 3: Extract Cited Works (Predecessors)

From the paper's references and related work section, identify papers grouped by role:

For each cited paper, extract:

• Title, authors, year
• arXiv ID (if identifiable)
• Role (from table above)
• One-line description of relationship

Step 4: Find Successor Works

Search for papers that cite or build on the target paper using multiple sources:

4a. Semantic Scholar API (primary)

# Get paper details + citations
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/ArXiv:{PAPER_ID}?fields=title,year,citationCount,citations.title,citations.year,citations.authors,citations.externalIds,citations.citationCount"

# If not found by arXiv ID, search by title
curl -s "https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search?query=<URL_ENCODED_TITLE>&limit=5&fields=title,year,externalIds,citations.title,citations.year,citations.authors,citations.externalIds,citations.citationCount"

4b. Web search (supplementary)

WebSearch: "<paper_title>" improvements OR "builds on" OR "extends" site:arxiv.org
WebSearch: "<paper_title>" cite OR citing 2024 2025 2026

4c. AlphaXiv (if available)

Check the AlphaXiv overview for mentions of follow-up or concurrent work.

4d. Connected Papers / Papers With Code

WebSearch: "<paper_title>" site:paperswithcode.com
WebSearch: "<paper_title>" site:connectedpapers.com

Step 5: Classify & Rank Successors

For each successor found, classify:

Rank by relevance: direct extensions > improvements > applications > comparisons.

Step 6: Produce the Report

ASK USER before generating: "I found N predecessors and M successors. Want me to:

1. Full map (all papers, grouped and annotated)
2. Key papers only (most influential predecessors + direct successors)
3. Focus on a specific branch (e.g., only RL-based successors)?"

Output format:

# Paper Walkthrough & Related Works: <Paper Title>

**Paper:** <title> (<authors>, <year>)
**arXiv:** <link>
**Core contribution:** <1 sentence>

---

## 1. Paper Walkthrough

### Background & Problem
<What problem, why it matters, what gap exists>

### Motivation & Key Insight
<Core insight, what's different from prior work>

### Method
<High-level approach, architecture, key design choices>

### Results
| Method | Benchmark | Metric | Value |
|--------|-----------|--------|-------|
| This paper | ... | ... | ... |
| Best baseline | ... | ... | ... |

<Key ablation findings, qualitative highlights>

### Limitations & Future Work
- <Author-stated limitations>
- <Observed limitations>
- <Proposed future directions>

---

## 2. Predecessors (Papers This Work Builds On)

### Foundations
| Paper | Year | Relationship | Code |
|-------|------|-------------|------|
| [Title](https://arxiv.org/abs/...) | ... | ... | [repo](url) |

### Baselines
| Paper | Year | Relationship | Code |
|-------|------|-------------|------|

### Components
| Paper | Year | Relationship | Code |
|-------|------|-------------|------|

### Concurrent Work
| Paper | Year | Relationship | Code |
|-------|------|-------------|------|

## 3. Successors (Papers That Build on This Work)

### Direct Extensions
| Paper | Year | What They Add | Citations | Code |
|-------|------|--------------|-----------|------|
| [Title](https://arxiv.org/abs/...) | ... | ... | ... | [repo](url) |

### Improvements
| Paper | Year | What They Fix/Improve | Citations | Code |
|-------|------|----------------------|-----------|------|

### Applications
| Paper | Year | Domain/Task | Citations | Code |
|-------|------|------------|-----------|------|

## 4. Research Lineage

<ASCII diagram showing the main line of research>

<target_paper>
├── built on: <foundation_1> → <foundation_2> → ...
├── extended by: <successor_1>, <successor_2>
└── applied to: <application_1>

## 5. Suggested Reading Order

1. <paper> — <why read this first>
2. <paper> — <builds on #1>
...

Step 7: Save Report

Always save the report to a file. Ask user for preferred location, default:

mkdir -p doc/related_works

Save as doc/related_works/<paper_short_name>_related.md.

Every paper entry MUST include a clickable link. Use this format for all tables:

| [Paper Title](https://arxiv.org/abs/XXXX.XXXXX) | 2025 | Relationship | `XXXX.XXXXX` |

If no arXiv ID, use Semantic Scholar link: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/<S2_ID>

For papers with code, add repo link:

| [Paper Title](https://arxiv.org/abs/XXXX.XXXXX) | 2025 | Description | [code](https://github.com/...) |

Step 8: Offer Next Steps

After presenting the map, ask:

• "Want me to deep-dive into any of these papers? (I can create a skill with /create_skill_with_paper)"
• "Want me to survey the broader topic? (I can run /topic_survey)"
• "Want me to find the code repos for any of these?"

Tips

• Semantic Scholar API has rate limits (~100 req/5min for unauthenticated). Space requests if doing bulk lookups.
• Papers <6 months old may have few/no citations yet. Rely more on web search for recent successors.
• Some papers cite predecessors only in supplementary material — check appendices.
• For very popular papers (>500 citations), filter successors by citation count or recency to keep the map manageable.

Error Handling