researchassistant_skill

Overview

This skill monitors research topics for new papers, conferences, and journal issues and delivers concise updates only when meaningful items appear. It keeps a per-user topic list and a last-checked timestamp to avoid redundant notifications. The goal is minimal interruptions: you get short, actionable briefs when something genuinely new is found.

How this skill works

The skill reads a local configuration to find tracked topics and the last check date. It performs web searches across sources like arXiv, IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar (via web search) and conference listings to find new papers, upcoming conferences, and fresh journal issues. Found items are filtered against a seen-history; only novel, timely, and relevant items are compiled into a short report and presented to the user.

When to use it

• Keep up-to-date on a focused research area without manual searching
• Monitor incoming papers for a lab or research team
• Track conference announcements and submission deadlines
• Receive briefings only when significant new activity appears
• Archive discovered items to avoid repeated alerts

Best practices

• Configure clear, focused topics (few words to a short phrase) to reduce noise
• Avoid overly broad topics; narrow terms yield more relevant results
• Run daily or weekly checks depending on publication cadence
• Mark false positives as seen to refine future filtering
• Review and prune topics periodically to keep alerts useful

Example use cases

• A PhD student tracks two subfields and receives a daily summary of new arXiv papers and conference CFPs
• A PI monitors competitor groups for major papers and only sees summaries of high-impact releases
• A research group watches a rapidly moving topic and gets immediate alerts about new preprints or special journal issues
• A librarian or research manager compiles weekly briefs of new publications and conference deadlines for their department