novelty-check
Verify research idea novelty against recent literature. Use when user says "查新", "novelty check", "有没有人做过", "check novelty", or wants to verify a research idea is novel before implementing.
Best use case
novelty-check is best used when you need a repeatable AI agent workflow instead of a one-off prompt.
Verify research idea novelty against recent literature. Use when user says "查新", "novelty check", "有没有人做过", "check novelty", or wants to verify a research idea is novel before implementing.
Teams using novelty-check should expect a more consistent output, faster repeated execution, less prompt rewriting.
When to use this skill
- You want a reusable workflow that can be run more than once with consistent structure.
When not to use this skill
- You only need a quick one-off answer and do not need a reusable workflow.
- You cannot install or maintain the underlying files, dependencies, or repository context.
Installation
Claude Code / Cursor / Codex
Manual Installation
- Download SKILL.md from GitHub
- Place it in
.claude/skills/novelty-check/SKILL.mdinside your project - Restart your AI agent — it will auto-discover the skill
How novelty-check Compares
| Feature / Agent | novelty-check | Standard Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Support | Not specified | Limited / Varies |
| Context Awareness | High | Baseline |
| Installation Complexity | Unknown | N/A |
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this skill do?
Verify research idea novelty against recent literature. Use when user says "查新", "novelty check", "有没有人做过", "check novelty", or wants to verify a research idea is novel before implementing.
Where can I find the source code?
You can find the source code on GitHub using the link provided at the top of the page.
Related Guides
Best AI Skills for Claude
Explore the best AI skills for Claude and Claude Code across coding, research, workflow automation, documentation, and agent operations.
ChatGPT vs Claude for Agent Skills
Compare ChatGPT and Claude for AI agent skills across coding, writing, research, and reusable workflow execution.
AI Agents for Startups
Explore AI agent skills for startup validation, product research, growth experiments, documentation, and fast execution with small teams.
SKILL.md Source
# Novelty Check Skill
Check whether a proposed method/idea has already been done in the literature: **$ARGUMENTS**
## Constants
- REVIEWER_MODEL = `gpt-5.4` — Model used via Codex MCP. Must be an OpenAI model (e.g., `gpt-5.4`, `o3`, `gpt-4o`)
## Instructions
Given a method description, systematically verify its novelty:
### Phase A: Extract Key Claims
1. Read the user's method description
2. Identify 3-5 core technical claims that would need to be novel:
- What is the method?
- What problem does it solve?
- What is the mechanism?
- What makes it different from obvious baselines?
### Phase B: Multi-Source Literature Search
For EACH core claim, search using ALL available sources:
1. **Web Search** (via `WebSearch`):
- Search arXiv, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar
- Use specific technical terms from the claim
- Try at least 3 different query formulations per claim
- Include year filters for 2024-2026
2. **Known paper databases**: Check against:
- ICLR 2025/2026, NeurIPS 2025, ICML 2025/2026
- Recent arXiv preprints (2025-2026)
3. **Read abstracts**: For each potentially overlapping paper, WebFetch its abstract and related work section
### Phase C: Cross-Model Verification
Call REVIEWER_MODEL via Codex MCP (`mcp__codex__codex`) with xhigh reasoning:
```
config: {"model_reasoning_effort": "xhigh"}
```
Prompt should include:
- The proposed method description
- All papers found in Phase B
- Ask: "Is this method novel? What is the closest prior work? What is the delta?"
### Phase D: Novelty Report
Output a structured report:
```markdown
## Novelty Check Report
### Proposed Method
[1-2 sentence description]
### Core Claims
1. [Claim 1] — Novelty: HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW — Closest: [paper]
2. [Claim 2] — Novelty: HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW — Closest: [paper]
...
### Closest Prior Work
| Paper | Year | Venue | Overlap | Key Difference |
|-------|------|-------|---------|----------------|
### Overall Novelty Assessment
- Score: X/10
- Recommendation: PROCEED / PROCEED WITH CAUTION / ABANDON
- Key differentiator: [what makes this unique, if anything]
- Risk: [what a reviewer would cite as prior work]
### Suggested Positioning
[How to frame the contribution to maximize novelty perception]
```
### Important Rules
- Be BRUTALLY honest — false novelty claims waste months of research time
- "Applying X to Y" is NOT novel unless the application reveals surprising insights
- Check both the method AND the experimental setting for novelty
- If the method is not novel but the FINDING would be, say so explicitly
- Always check the most recent 6 months of arXiv — the field moves fastRelated Skills
training-check
Periodically check WandB metrics during training to catch problems early (NaN, loss divergence, idle GPUs). Avoids wasting GPU hours on broken runs. Use when training is running and you want automated health checks.
vast-gpu
Rent, manage, and destroy GPU instances on vast.ai. Use when user says "rent gpu", "vast.ai", "rent a server", "cloud gpu", or needs on-demand GPU without owning hardware.
system-profile
Profile a target (script, process, GPU, memory, interconnect) using external tools and code instrumentation. Produces structured performance reports with actionable recommendations. Use when user says "profile", "benchmark", "bottleneck", or wants performance analysis.
serverless-modal
Run GPU workloads on Modal — training, fine-tuning, inference, batch processing. Zero-config serverless: no SSH, no Docker, auto scale-to-zero. Use when user says "modal run", "modal training", "modal inference", "deploy to modal", "need a GPU", "run on modal", "serverless GPU", or needs remote GPU compute.
semantic-scholar
Search published venue papers (IEEE, ACM, Springer, etc.) via Semantic Scholar API. Complements /arxiv (preprints) with citation counts, venue metadata, and TLDR. Use when user says "search semantic scholar", "find IEEE papers", "find journal papers", "venue papers", "citation search", or wants published literature beyond arXiv preprints.
run-experiment
Deploy and run ML experiments on local, remote, Vast.ai, or Modal serverless GPU. Use when user says "run experiment", "deploy to server", "跑实验", or needs to launch training jobs.
result-to-claim
Use when experiments complete to judge what claims the results support, what they don't, and what evidence is still missing. Codex MCP evaluates results against intended claims and routes to next action (pivot, supplement, or confirm). Use after experiments finish — before writing the paper or running ablations.
research-review
Get a deep critical review of research from GPT via Codex MCP. Use when user says "review my research", "help me review", "get external review", or wants critical feedback on research ideas, papers, or experimental results.
research-refine
Turn a vague research direction into a problem-anchored, elegant, frontier-aware, implementation-oriented method plan via iterative GPT-5.4 review. Use when the user says "refine my approach", "帮我细化方案", "decompose this problem", "打磨idea", "refine research plan", "细化研究方案", or wants a concrete research method that stays simple, focused, and top-venue ready instead of a vague or overbuilt idea.
research-refine-pipeline
Run an end-to-end workflow that chains `research-refine` and `experiment-plan`. Use when the user wants a one-shot pipeline from vague research direction to focused final proposal plus detailed experiment roadmap, or asks to "串起来", build a pipeline, do it end-to-end, or generate both the method and experiment plan together.
research-pipeline
Full research pipeline: Workflow 1 (idea discovery) → implementation → Workflow 2 (auto review loop). Goes from a broad research direction all the way to a submission-ready paper. Use when user says "全流程", "full pipeline", "从找idea到投稿", "end-to-end research", or wants the complete autonomous research lifecycle.
research-lit
Search and analyze research papers, find related work, summarize key ideas. Use when user says "find papers", "related work", "literature review", "what does this paper say", or needs to understand academic papers.