/novelty-assessment

name: novelty-assessment
description: Assess research idea novelty through systematic literature search. Multi-round search-evaluate loops with harsh critic persona. Binary novel/not-novel decision with justification. Use before committing to a research direction.
argument-hint: [idea]

Novelty Assessment

Rigorously assess whether a research idea is novel through systematic literature search.

Input

• `$0` — Research idea description, title, or JSON file

Scripts

Automated novelty check

python ~/.claude/skills/idea-generation/scripts/novelty_check.py \
  --idea "Your research idea description" \
  --max-rounds 10 --output novelty_report.json

Literature search

python ~/.claude/skills/deep-research/scripts/search_semantic_scholar.py \
  --query "relevant search query" --max-results 10

References

• Assessment prompts and criteria: `~/.claude/skills/novelty-assessment/references/assessment-prompts.md`

Workflow

Step 1: Understand the Idea

• Identify the core contribution
• List the key technical components
• Determine the research area and subfield

Step 2: Multi-Round Literature Search (up to 10 rounds)

For each round: 1. Generate a targeted search query 2. Search Semantic Scholar / arXiv / OpenAlex 3. Review top-10 results with abstracts 4. Assess overlap with the idea 5. Decide: need more searching, or ready to decide

Step 3: Make Decision

• **Novel**: After sufficient searching, no paper significantly overlaps
• **Not Novel**: Found a paper that significantly overlaps

Step 4: Position the Idea

If novel, identify:

• Most similar existing papers (for Related Work)
• How the idea differs from each
• The specific gap this idea fills

Harsh Critic Persona

Be a harsh critic for novelty. Ensure there is a sufficient contribution
for a new conference or workshop paper. A trivial extension of existing
work is NOT novel. The idea must offer a meaningfully different approach,
formulation, or insight.

Output Format

{
  "decision": "novel" | "not_novel",
  "confidence": "high" | "medium" | "low",
  "justification": "After searching X rounds...",
  "most_similar_papers": [
    {"title": "...", "year": 2024, "overlap": "..."}
  ],
  "differentiation": "Our idea differs because..."
}

Rules

• Minimum 3 search rounds before declaring novel
• Try to recall exact paper names for targeted queries
• A paper idea is NOT novel if it's a trivial extension
• Consider both methodology novelty AND application novelty
• Check for concurrent/recent arXiv submissions

Related Skills

• Upstream: [literature-search](../literature-search/), [deep-research](../deep-research/)
• Downstream: [idea-generation](../idea-generation/), [research-planning](../research-planning/)
• See also: [related-work-writing](../related-work-writing/)