yogsoth-ai Snowball
Purpose: Seed-first, forward/backward tracing — start from known seed papers and trace the research lineage in both directions.
When to use: User already has key papers and wants to find everything connected to them — what they built on, what built on them.
Budget
| Base SOP | Target | ±10% Range |
|---|---|---|
| web-search | 20 results | 18–22 |
| web-research | 3 pages | 2–4 |
| paper-overview | 30 papers | 27–33 |
| paper-search | 30 papers | 27–33 |
| paper-research | 20 papers | 18–22 |
State Ledger
Print this table before each major iteration decision:
| SOP | Target | Current | % Complete |
|----------------|--------|---------|------------|
| web-search | 20 | ??? | ???% |
| web-research | 3 | ??? | ???% |
| paper-overview | 30 | ??? | ???% |
| paper-search | 30 | ??? | ???% |
| paper-research | 20 | ??? | ???% |
Do not exit the strategy until all rows reach ≥90%.
Available Tactics
citation-chaining— forward/backward citation expansion until saturation
Available SOPs
Import (strict protocol execution):
web-search→ web-browsing/skills/web-search/SKILL.mdweb-research→ web-browsing/skills/web-research/SKILL.mdpaper-overview→ literature-engine/skills/literature-overview/SKILL.mdpaper-search→ literature-engine/skills/literature-search/SKILL.mdpaper-research→ literature-engine/skills/literature-research/SKILL.md
Subagent (CC decides when to invoke):
seed-selection— validate and prioritize starting paperssaturation-detection— determine when to stop (diminishing returns)gap-identification— find what the literature hasn't addressedsurvey-synthesis— produce final structured output
Execution Guidance
- seed-selection validates and prioritizes the starting papers
- citation-chaining is the primary operation — iterate until saturation
- saturation-detection determines when to stop (diminishing returns)
- Minimal web-search (only for context that papers don't provide)
- High paper-research ratio (20/30 = 67% deep-read rate) — trace papers deserve thorough reading
- Build a clear lineage: who influenced whom, how ideas evolved
Output Format
Research Lineage Map containing:
- Seed papers → ancestors (backward trace)
- Seed papers → descendants (forward trace)
- Evolution of ideas across generations
- Key branch points where the field diverged
- Current frontier (most recent descendants)
- Lineage visualization (text-based DAG)
Available Tactics
Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.
| Tactic | When to use |
|---|---|
| citation-chaining | Forward and backward citation tracing tactic — expand paper coverage by tracing citation networks in both directions from seed/key papers. Alternates forward (who cited this) and backward (what this cited) passes until saturation. |
Available SOPs
Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.
| SOP | When to use |
|---|---|
| knowledge-acquisition-gap-identification | Identify what the literature has NOT addressed — missing methods, untested combinations, unexplored applications, contradictions without resolution. Used by all strategies. |
| knowledge-acquisition-paper-overview | Abstract-level paper scanning for broad coverage. Import of literature-engine/literature-overview skill. Abstract-level only — no methodology conclusions from abstracts. |
| knowledge-acquisition-paper-research | Full-depth paper reading with raw text extraction. Import of literature-engine/literature-research skill. Must read fullText (true) — equations, hyperparameters, specific claims extracted. |
| knowledge-acquisition-paper-search | AI-summarized paper reading for intermediate depth. Import of literature-engine/literature-search skill. Must call get_paper_content for every analyzed paper. |
| knowledge-acquisition-saturation-detection | Determine when additional searching yields diminishing returns. Analyzes the latest expansion batch against existing corpus to judge continue/near-saturation/saturated. Used by snowball and systematic-survey. |
| knowledge-acquisition-web-research | Full-page web reading for non-academic perspectives — blogs, tech reports, product pages, industry analysis. Import of web-browsing/web-research skill. Must fetch full page via apify for every analyzed page. |
| knowledge-acquisition-web-search | Quick web scanning for landscape understanding. Import of web-browsing/web-search skill. Snippets only — no conclusions from snippets alone. |
| seed-selection | Validate and prioritize starting papers for snowball surveys. Evaluates which seeds will yield the richest citation traces based on citation count, recency, and network position. |
| survey-synthesis | Final synthesis step — weave all gathered evidence (reading notes, extracted data, categorizations) into a coherent structured output appropriate to the strategy type. Used by all 5 strategies as the final step. |