Autoconference:survey

autoconference:survey — Systematic Literature Survey

Run a multi-researcher literature survey where each researcher covers non-overlapping sources, then synthesizes findings via citation-chain knowledge transfer.

Survey Persistence Directive

The Session Chair is relentless. Once the survey begins:

1. NEVER STOP a round prematurely. Each round runs all 4 phases to completion.
2. NEVER ASK "should I continue to the next round?" Advance automatically.
3. Use the full budget. If max_rounds is 2, run 2 complete rounds.
4. The survey runs until one of these conditions is met:
   • All taxonomy categories have >= minimum papers (coverage target met)
   • max_rounds exhausted (budget spent — this is normal, not failure)
   • The user manually interrupts
5. If none of these conditions are true, begin the next round immediately.

Pre-Survey Setup (Mandatory)

Before launching any survey, the Session Chair MUST ask the user these questions. Do NOT assume defaults — present options and wait for the user's answers.

Question 1: Survey Topic / Research Question

Ask: "What is the topic or research question for this literature survey?"

Accept a free-form description. This becomes the lens for all searches and the basis for auto-generating taxonomy categories.

Question 2: Partitioning Strategy

Ask: "How should researchers divide their search coverage?"

Present options:

• By database (recommended for broad coverage):

  • Researcher A → PubMed / bioRxiv
  • Researcher B → arXiv / Semantic Scholar
  • Researcher C → Google Scholar / ACM Digital Library

• By time period (recommended for tracking evolution of a field):

  • Researcher A → 2020–2022
  • Researcher B → 2023–2024
  • Researcher C → 2025–present

• By methodology (recommended for contrasting research designs):

  • Researcher A → RCTs / experimental studies
  • Researcher B → Observational studies / surveys
  • Researcher C → Reviews / meta-analyses

• Custom: User defines their own partitioning scheme (e.g., by language, geography, or application domain)

Record the confirmed partitioning before proceeding.

Question 3: Minimum Papers per Researcher

Ask: "What is the minimum number of papers each researcher should find per taxonomy category? (Default: 5)"

If the user accepts the default, use 5. Record this as min_papers.

Question 4: Taxonomy Categories

Ask: "What categories should papers be organized into? You can provide a list, or I can auto-generate categories from your research topic."

• If the user provides categories: use them exactly.
• If the user asks for auto-generation: generate 5–8 categories that carve up the topic space without overlap. Present the generated categories for confirmation before proceeding.

Record the confirmed taxonomy as a numbered list.

Question 5: Max Rounds

Ask: "How many survey rounds should be run? (Default: 2 — surveys usually need fewer rounds than optimization loops)"

If the user accepts the default, set max_rounds = 2. Record this value.

Session Chair Responsibilities

The Session Chair (you, the orchestrating agent) owns the survey lifecycle:

1. Conducts pre-survey setup (above)
2. Launches parallel researcher agents each round
3. Collects and analyzes results at each poster session
4. Tracks coverage metrics across taxonomy categories
5. Assigns gap-filling tasks for subsequent rounds
6. Produces the final survey-report.md

Round Structure

Each round consists of 4 phases executed in sequence. Do not skip phases.

Phase 1: Independent Search (Parallel)

Spawn 3 researcher agents in parallel. Each agent receives:

• The research topic / research question
• Their specific source partition assignment
• The full taxonomy (list of categories)
• The minimum papers target (min_papers)
• Any citation leads from previous rounds (empty on Round 1)

Each researcher MUST:

1. Search their assigned sources using the research topic. Use WebSearch and WebFetch to find papers. Try multiple search queries — not just the exact topic phrase. Use synonyms, sub-topics, and related terms to maximize coverage.

2. For each paper found, extract and record:

   • Title
   • Authors (first author + et al. if > 3)
   • Year of publication
   • Venue / journal / preprint server
   • Abstract summary (2–3 sentences in the researcher's own words)
   • Key findings (bullet list, max 5 points)
   • Methodology used
   • Which taxonomy category this paper belongs to (assign to exactly one)
   • Papers this work cites that seem highly relevant (citation leads)
   • Papers that cite this work, if discoverable

3. Organize findings into the taxonomy. Produce a table or structured list grouped by category.

4. Self-assess coverage using a qualitative 1–10 score per category:

   • 1–3: Very sparse (< 2 papers found)
   • 4–6: Partial (2–4 papers found)
   • 7–9: Good (5–7 papers found)
   • 10: Comprehensive (8+ papers, confident no major gaps)

5. Log results to researcher_{ID}_results.tsv in the conference working directory. Format:

   category\ttitle\tauthors\tyear\tvenue\tsummary\tkey_findings\tcoverage_score
   

6. Report citation leads — a list of papers encountered in references or related work sections that the researcher could not access from their assigned sources but may be findable by other researchers.

Phase 2: Citation Chain Poster Session

The Session Chair collects all researcher outputs and runs the poster session analysis:

2a. Aggregate results

Build a unified table: for each taxonomy category, list all papers found across all researchers, with researcher ID noted.

2b. Citation overlap analysis

Identify papers that appear in multiple researchers' results (cited by multiple researchers or independently discovered). These high-overlap papers are likely foundational — flag them as anchor papers.

2c. Coverage gap analysis

For each taxonomy category:

• Count total papers found
• Flag categories where count < min_papers as coverage gaps
• Record which researcher(s) have coverage in each category

2d. Citation chain knowledge transfer

This is the key differentiator from independent search. The Session Chair synthesizes citation leads across researcher boundaries:

• "Researcher A found paper X (in PubMed) which cites paper Y — Researcher B should search for paper Y in arXiv/Semantic Scholar"
• "Researcher C's meta-analysis references a 2021 RCT — Researcher A should search for it in their time period"
• "Category Z has no coverage from Researcher B's database — Researcher B should try alternative search terms: [suggest 3 terms]"

Produce a Citation Lead Dossier listing:

• For each gap category: 2–3 specific papers to chase or search queries to try
• For each citation lead: which researcher should pursue it in the next round and why

2e. Print summary to terminal:

=== POSTER SESSION: ROUND {N} ===
Papers found this round: {total}
Anchor papers (multi-researcher): {count}
Coverage gaps: {list of categories below min_papers}
Citation leads generated: {count}
Coverage metric: {categories_at_or_above_min} / {total_categories}

Phase 3: Peer Review

Spawn a Reviewer agent (use highest available model for rigor) to review the accumulated findings:

The Reviewer checks:

1. Accuracy of summaries — spot-check 3–5 papers by fetching their abstracts directly. Do the researcher summaries accurately reflect the paper content? Flag any misrepresentation.

2. Categorization correctness — are papers assigned to the right taxonomy category? Flag any papers that seem miscategorized.

3. Obvious missing papers — given the research topic and taxonomy, are there well-known papers or research groups that should appear but don't? List up to 5 specific suggestions.

4. Balance across categories — is coverage suspiciously skewed? (e.g., one category has 20 papers while others have 0) If so, flag it.

5. Quality of citation leads — are the citation lead dossier suggestions actionable and relevant?

The Reviewer produces a short peer-review-round-{N}.md with:

• Accuracy issues found (with paper titles)
• Miscategorization flags
• Missing paper suggestions
• Balance observations
• Citation lead quality assessment

Phase 4: Coverage Transfer

The Session Chair processes the peer review and prepares for the next round:

1. Update the shared citation graph — merge all newly discovered papers and citation relationships into a running graph (text format):

   [Paper A] --cites--> [Paper B]
   [Paper C] --cites--> [Paper A]
   

2. Incorporate peer review flags — if accuracy issues were found, add a correction task for the next round. If miscategorizations were found, move papers to correct categories now.

3. Assign gap-filling tasks — based on the Citation Lead Dossier and peer review missing-paper suggestions, assign specific search tasks to each researcher for the next round:

   Researcher A (next round): Chase citation lead [Paper Y]; try search query "[alternative term]" in PubMed
   Researcher B (next round): Investigate Category Z gap; search for [specific suggested papers]
   Researcher C (next round): Verify claim in [Paper X]; search for RCT cited in [meta-analysis title]
   

4. Compute convergence metric:

   coverage_metric = (categories with >= min_papers) / total_categories
   

   If coverage_metric == 1.0, the coverage target is met. Note this — the survey may conclude after this round completes.

5. Print status:

   === ROUND {N} COMPLETE ===
   Coverage metric: {coverage_metric:.2f} ({categories_at_min}/{total})
   Target met: YES / NO
   Budget remaining: {max_rounds - N} rounds
   Next round: AUTO-STARTING
   

   If target met AND budget exhausted, or if target met early: proceed to Final Output. If budget remains and target not met: begin Round N+1 immediately with the gap-filling assignments.

Convergence Conditions

Stop the survey when ANY of the following is true:

1. coverage_metric == 1.0 (all categories have >= min_papers papers) — coverage target met
2. N == max_rounds — budget exhausted (this is a normal, expected stopping point)
3. User interrupts

On stopping, proceed immediately to Final Output.

Final Output: survey-report.md

Write survey-report.md to the conference working directory. The report must contain all of the following sections:

Section 1: Executive Summary

3–5 paragraphs covering:

• The research question this survey addressed
• The partitioning strategy used and why
• The total number of papers found and across how many rounds
• The 3–5 most important findings across all researchers
• The most significant gaps that remain

Section 2: Taxonomy Table

A complete table with one row per paper, organized by category. Columns:

Sort within each category by year (descending).

Section 3: Citation Graph

Text-format citation graph showing the key citation chains discovered across researchers. Format:

[CATEGORY: {name}]
  [Paper A (Year)] --cites--> [Paper B (Year)] --cites--> [Paper C (Year)]
  [Paper D (Year)] --cites--> [Paper A (Year)]

[CROSS-CATEGORY LINKS]
  [Paper E (Category 1)] --cites--> [Paper F (Category 3)]

List anchor papers (cited by 2+ researchers or discovered via multiple chains) with a note: (ANCHOR).

Section 4: Coverage Heatmap

A text-format table showing coverage per category per researcher:

Color coding (in markdown bold/italics):

• Bold: >= min_papers (coverage target met)
• Italic: < min_papers (gap)
• Empty cell: 0 papers

Section 5: Gaps and Recommendations

A structured list of:

1. Uncovered categories (if any remain below min_papers) — with specific search suggestions
2. Citation leads not yet chased — papers identified in citation chains but not yet retrieved
3. Peer review flags — accuracy issues or miscategorizations flagged across rounds
4. Recommended next steps — if the user wants to deepen coverage, what should they do next?

Section 6: Methodology Note

Brief description of the survey protocol used:

• Partitioning strategy
• Rounds run
• Total papers considered
• Peer review process used

Chaining

This skill produces a literature foundation that feeds naturally into other skills:

• autoconference:survey → autoconference: Use the survey's taxonomy and anchor papers as the background section of a conference.md to bootstrap an optimization conference with an established literature base.
• autoconference:survey → autoconference:ship: Pass survey-report.md to the ship skill to format the survey findings as a publication-ready systematic review.

When chaining, note which papers are anchor papers — these are the highest-priority references to include in the downstream conference or publication.