Future Works Analysis

VerifiedCaution

Future-works analysis skill with two modes: audit one manuscript's future works section or mine a corpus for stated open problems and synthesize a prioritized research opportunity list.

Sby Skills Guide Bot
Data & AIIntermediate
7/23/2026
Claude Code
#future-works#manuscript-audit#corpus-mining#literature-review#research-gap

Recommended for

Automated summary

Audits a single manuscript's own future-works section or mines the stated future works from a corpus's full text, returning flagged findings and a synthesis table to a host agent.

Strengths

  • Two modes with explicit input contracts: one .tex/.md manuscript (with recursive \input/\include resolution) or a downloaded corpus's full text.
  • Emits `[FW …]` flags that host auditors (paper, Scopus, thesis, thesis proposal) fold straight into their plan.
  • Corpus mode builds a future-works table scored for fit to the review, plus a Pareto 80/20 effort-vs-impact ranking and a research-opportunity list.
  • Checks each statement for testability, specificity, link to a stated limitation, and novelty against the Scopus literature — without ever editing the manuscript.

Limitations

  • Not a standalone command: the skill is meant to be invoked at an agent's future-works step, not typed by a user.
  • Depends on companion scripts (download_pdf.py, extract_text.py --section-scan) and an already-downloaded Scopus corpus.
  • Relies on section-heading cues, so poorly structured or non-standard manuscripts may be mis-segmented.
  • Runs no deliberation or external review panel (gemini_reviewer.py, github_reviewer.py); critique stays with the host agent.
When to use it

Use it when an auditor agent reaches its future-works / hypothesis step on a manuscript, or when scopus-researcher wants the author-declared open problems extracted from a corpus.

When not to use it

Avoid it for free-form ideation unanchored to a specific manuscript or corpus, or as a direct user command outside the agent pipeline.

Security analysis

Caution
Quality score86/100

The skill itself does not include destructive or exfiltration commands, but it orchestrates network downloads, API calls, and parsing of arbitrary documents. These are legitimate for academic research but introduce risk if the input corpus is malicious or the external scripts are compromised, so caution is warranted.

Findings
  • •Instructs host agent to call download_pdf.py, which fetches external URLs and APIs; if user-supplied corpus includes malicious or internal targets, it could be abused for SSRF or unintended network access.
  • •Relies on external scripts (download_pdf.py, extract_text.py, scopus_api.py) whose implementations are not part of this skill and are not audited here; they could contain unsafe operations.
  • •Parses untrusted PDF/HTML documents with third-party backends, which may be vulnerable to document-based attacks.
How this analysis is made

Examples

Audit a thesis's future works
Run the future-works audit on chapters/thesis.tex: flag every future-work statement that isn't testable or isn't tied to a stated limitation, and check novelty against Scopus.
Mine a corpus for open problems
Mine the future works of the 40 papers in corpus/ and give me the corpus future-works table with fit to my review and the Pareto 80/20 effort-vs-impact ranking, plus a research-opportunity list.
Validate stated hypotheses
At the hypothesis step, cross-check my proposal's stated hypotheses against the future works declared in the cited corpus and propose stronger, testable ones.

name: extract-futureworks description: "Future-works analysis skill with two modes. Mode audit: review one manuscript's own future-works / conclusion / limitations section (.tex/.md) — presence, testability, link to a stated limitation, and novelty against the literature — and emit flagged findings for the host agent's plan. Mode mine: extract the stated future works / open problems of a corpus from full text (download via download_pdf.py any-format, parse via extract_text.py --section-scan) and synthesize a corpus future-works table (with fit to the review and a Pareto 80/20 effort-vs-impact ranking) plus a research-opportunity list. Used inside the four auditors (audit) and scopus-researcher (mine). Trigger when an agent reaches its future-works / hypothesis step."

Future-works analysis (audit + corpus mining)

A reusable future-works capability invoked by the academic agents. It mirrors the extract-statistic skill: two modes, one input contract each, and a strict boundary — it produces findings, the host agent judges them through its own deliberation step. The full pipeline and flag catalogue live in references/futureworks-protocol.md; the heading cues used to locate the relevant passages live in references/section-cues.md. Read both before using this skill. This file is the entry point and contract.

When to use

  • Mode audit — a host auditor (paper-auditor, scopus-auditor, thesis-auditor, thesis-proposal-auditor) reaches its future-works / hypothesis step. The skill audits the work's own stated future works and is then used to validate the work's hypotheses and to propose stronger ones drawn from the cited corpus.
  • Mode mine — scopus-researcher has downloaded the corpus full text and wants every paper's stated future works extracted and synthesized, so the gap map, the Pareto matrix, and the hypotheses target real, author-declared open problems for the next research project.

When NOT to use

  • As a standalone command typed by the user. The skill is invoked by the agents at their future-works step, not directly. (It still runs if a user points it at a file, but its outputs feed a host pipeline.)
  • For broad ideation unanchored to a manuscript or a corpus.

Cross-review boundary (do not run deliberation here)

This skill does not run a deliberation panel and does not call gemini_reviewer.py or github_reviewer.py. The host agents already run the mandatory deliberation step once on their near-final output; the findings produced here are merged into the host plan and critiqued there. This keeps one panel per run.

Modes

Mode audit — one manuscript's own future works

  • Input: a .tex or .md manuscript path. Resolve \input{}/\include{} recursively (up to 3 levels) and audit the merged document, exactly as the host auditors merge their input.
  • Pipeline (see the protocol reference): locate the future-works / conclusion / limitations section -> presence check -> per-statement testability and specificity audit -> link-to-limitation audit -> novelty check against Scopus -> hypothesis cross-check (validate the work's stated hypotheses against the corpus future works and propose stronger ones).
  • Output:
    • <basename>_futurework_report.md next to the manuscript (or futurework_report_<YYYY-MM-DD>.md in the working directory for pasted text).
    • A list of [FW …] flags the host folds into its plan (paper-auditor Section E, scopus-auditor Section F1, thesis / thesis-proposal Section B).
  • Never modify the manuscript directly. Corrections are applied by the host plan / latex-writer.

Mode mine — corpus future works from full text

  • Input: a .bib (preferred) or an existing refs/ directory.
  • Steps:
    1. Ensure each retained paper's full text is present in any format - call .claude/skills/scopus/scripts/download_pdf.py (presence-gated; PDF, then the HTML/Markdown any-format tiers).
    2. Parse every present file with scripts/extract_text.py (--section-scan on) to get the future-work / conclusion / limitations excerpts per paper.
    3. Synthesize a corpus future-works table (one row per stated future-work item: paper, statement, category, fit to the review theme/gap, effort 1-5, impact 1-5) and a research-opportunity list (recurring "X remains future work" across papers = high-value, author-declared gap). The host ranks the rows by a Pareto 80/20 score (lowest effort x highest impact first).
  • Presence-gated: a paper whose full text could not be retrieved (status pdf-missing) contributes title/abstract-level future works only and is flagged [FW FULLTEXT-MISSING]; it never blocks the pipeline.
  • Output: <basename>_corpus_futurework.md (human-readable ranked table + opportunity list) and <basename>_corpus_futurework.json (machine-readable, consumed by scopus-researcher). These route into scopus-researcher Step 9b (gap map), Step 9d (Pareto matrix), and Step 10 (hypotheses).

Prerequisites

  • A Markdown/PDF backend importable for parsing (Docling preferred, else pymupdf4llm + pymupdf, else the HTML tag-strip) - see .claude/skills/extract-statistic/scripts/requirements.txt. A missing backend degrades to abstract-level future works and flags it.
  • For full-text retrieval in mine mode: .claude/skills/scopus/scripts/download_pdf.py reachable, SCOPUS_API_KEY for the Elsevier source, and UNPAYWALL_EMAIL for the Unpaywall tier (the arXiv / PMC / Semantic Scholar tiers work without a key).
  • For novelty / hypothesis lookups during the audit: scopus_api.py reachable. A network error is flagged [SCOPUS UNAVAILABLE] and the audit proceeds without references.

Invocation

# Mode audit (host auditor):
python ".claude/skills/extract-statistic/scripts/extract_text.py" text "<manuscript.tex>" --section-scan
# then apply the pipeline in references/futureworks-protocol.md and write <basename>_futurework_report.md

# Mode mine (scopus-researcher / auditor cited-corpus mining):
python ".claude/skills/scopus/scripts/download_pdf.py" bib "<corpus.bib>" --latex "<main.tex>"
python ".claude/skills/extract-statistic/scripts/extract_text.py" bib "<corpus.bib>" --latex "<main.tex>" --section-scan
# then synthesize <basename>_corpus_futurework.md + .json

The parser (extract_text.py) is shared with extract-statistic; this skill reuses its --section-scan output rather than shipping its own script. Pass --stats-scan --section-scan together when an agent mines statistics and future works in the same pass.

Resources

  • references/futureworks-protocol.md - the audit + mine pipelines, the [FW …] flag catalogue, the output format, and the Pareto ranking rule.
  • references/section-cues.md - the English and French heading cues used to locate the future-work / conclusion / limitations / open-problems passages.
  • The shared parser .claude/skills/extract-statistic/scripts/extract_text.py (--section-scan); it reuses download_pdf.py for any-format retrieval (it does not reimplement downloading).

Key rules

  • Respond in the manuscript's language (French if the manuscript is French, English if English).
  • Anti-AI-style hygiene follows .claude/skills/scientific-writing/references/writing_principles.md (canonical): no em dashes, straight quotes only, no zero-width characters, no AI transition phrases, no overly perfect lists. Target an AI-style risk score below 10%.
  • Never fabricate a future-work statement or a hypothesis; if the source does not state it, mark it missing.
  • Every proposed hypothesis must be testable by a named method and validated for novelty against Scopus before it is offered (reuse the scopus_api.py search pattern).
  • The Pareto 80/20 ranking is the host's: this skill supplies the per-paper future-work rows; the host scores effort vs impact and maps each row to the review's themes and gaps.

From the file to a first result

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View the source and supporting files

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1. Download the file

Download SKILL.md

From the root of a test project, save the file as .skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/SKILL.md, or use the command below. This folder is for inspecting the skill before installation.

Command for macOS/Linux or WSL: requires a POSIX shell and curl. On Windows without WSL, use the download button and create the folder manually.

mkdir -p '.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0' && curl --fail --show-error --location 'https://skills-guides.com/api/skills/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/download' --output '.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/SKILL.md.part' && mv '.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/SKILL.md.part' '.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/SKILL.md'

2. Check prerequisites

Read SKILL.md before using it. If it references scripts or external services, inspect them and prepare the required access in your test environment.

Original excerpt: Prerequisites
  • A Markdown/PDF backend importable for parsing (Docling preferred, else pymupdf4llm + pymupdf, else the HTML tag-strip) - see .claude/skills/extract-statistic/scripts/requirements.txt. A missing backend degrades to abstract-level future works and flags it.
  • For full-text retrieval in mine mode: .claude/skills/scopus/scripts/download_pdf.py reachable, SCOPUS_API_KEY for the Elsevier source, and UNPAYWALL_EMAIL for the Unpaywall tier (the arXiv / PMC / Semantic Scholar tiers work without a key).
  • For novelty / hypothesis lookups during the audit: scopus_api.py reachable. A network error is flagged [SCOPUS UNAVAILABLE] and the audit proceeds without references.

The platforms on this page are catalog indications. The paths below follow tool documentation; they do not prove this skill has been run in those tools. No minimum tool version is confirmed for this listing.

3. Load the skill

After inspection, copy the complete folder into your project using one of the commands below, then open a new tool session. The command stops if a folder with the same name already exists: compare the files before replacing it.

Claude Code
test -f '.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/SKILL.md' && test -s '.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/SKILL.md' && mkdir -p '.claude/skills' && test ! -e '.claude/skills/extract-futureworks' && cp -R '.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0' '.claude/skills/extract-futureworks'

OpenSkills

OpenSkills must already be installed. The local install/read procedure is checked with OpenSkills 1.5.0, which requires Node.js ≥ 20.6.0. Catalog slugs are not resolved automatically.

Official OpenSkills installation
openskills install './.skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0'

openskills read 'future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0'

Reading should display the installed file content and its base directory. It does not run the skill or install its dependencies.

For an agent that reads AGENTS.md, then sync the index. This command changes AGENTS.md: review the diff before using it.

openskills sync

Manual method or another tool: attach SKILL.md to a conversation, or open it in an agent that can read files. Include any required supporting resources. No universal folder is recognized by every tool.

4. Try a first task

Use a short, synthetic input: an API endpoint, a small document or an interface brief. In a new conversation, attach the file or give the agent its path, then adapt this request:

Read .skill-downloads/future-works-analysis-mrx3xzx0/SKILL.md and apply its instructions to this example: [describe a test input]. Identify any missing files, dependencies or access. Produce the result requested by the skill without inventing data or running unreviewed scripts.

Expected result: output matching the skill instructions, or a precise list of missing prerequisites. A read confirmation alone does not validate a first use. If an external resource is unavailable, that path remains untested.

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