Subagent-Driven Literature Review

RC native tools — this skill's pipeline ships as four built-in RC tools. Call them directly; do not shell out to any rp.py script or write curl:
- rpsearch({ query, limit?, minyear? }) — Scopus relevance search enriched with OpenAlex abstracts + OA PDF links. The Elsevier key is built in.
- rp_abstracts({ dois }) — batch abstracts + OA links for a DOI list (OpenAlex, no key).
- rp_cite({ doi, direction?, limit? }) — citation traversal (direction: both / backward / forward).
- rp_fulltext({ doi, out? }) — OA full text (Elsevier ScienceDirect OA → OpenAlex OA fallback); pass out to also save the text to a file.

Results return inline as JSON (there is no --json <file> flag). To persist a result set, save the returned JSON with the workspace file tools.

Overview

Core principle: Fresh subagent per batch + consolidation between batches = parallel reasoning with quality control.

For large reviews (50+ papers), subagents help in two real ways:

1. Context management — each subagent reads abstracts / full text in its own context,

so the main context stays clean for consolidation and decisions.

1. Parallel LLM reasoning — scoring, extraction, and summarizing happen concurrently.

What subagents do NOT speed up: API throughput

Read this before claiming "5x faster." All subagents egress from the same IP and share the same server-side rate limits (Scopus weekly quota; OpenAlex polite-pool ~10 req/s). Splitting work across 5 subagents does not give you 5x the API calls — the publisher counts them together.

Worse: rplib's rate limiter is per-process. Parallel subagents each run their own limiter and do not coordinate, so naïvely fanning out 10 subagents all calling rpsearch can collectively blow past the per-IP ceiling and trigger 429s.

What does hold up under parallelism:

• The disk cache is shared on the filesystem. If two subagents request the same DOI,

the second hits cache. Pre-warming the cache (see below) makes fan-out safe.

• rp_lib retries 429/5xx with exponential backoff, so bursts degrade gracefully rather

than failing — but that's damage control, not throughput.

Honest mental model: API-bound steps (search, abstract fetch, citation fetch) are capped by the server, so keep the number of subagents doing live API calls small (≤3–4). Reasoning-bound steps (scoring an abstract you already have, extracting from full text already on disk) parallelize freely — fan those out widely.

The pattern that actually scales: fetch once, fan out reasoning

Main agent (1 process, respects the rate limiter):
  1. rp_search ...           -> candidates with abstracts (cached to disk)
  2. rp_abstracts <dois>     -> fill any gaps (cached to disk)
Now every abstract is on disk. Dispatch N subagents to SCORE in parallel —
they read from cache, do no (or minimal) live API calls, and can't 429 each other.

This converts an API-bound problem into a reasoning-bound one, which is the only kind subagents genuinely accelerate.

When to Use

Use the subagent approach when:

• Large searches: 50+ candidates to screen
• Parallelizable reasoning: papers scored/extracted independently
• Deep dive: multiple papers need detailed extraction from full text
• Context pressure: main context filling up

Do NOT use when:

• Small searches (<20 papers) — overhead not worth it
• You need real-time visibility into every paper
• Papers require cross-comparison during screening

Use Cases

1. Parallel Scoring (most common)

Scenario: Scopus search returned 100 candidates (abstracts already attached by rp_search).

Pattern:

Main agent:
1. rp_search "<query>" --limit 100
   (abstracts now cached on disk for every hit)
2. Split the 100 records into 5 batches of 20
3. Dispatch 5 subagents IN PARALLEL — each SCORES its batch from the records
   it's handed (no live API calls needed; abstracts are already in the JSON)
4. Main agent consolidates into papers-reviewed.json

The speedup here is real because the scoring is reasoning-bound — the API work was already done once by the main agent.

Prompt template for a scoring subagent:

Score these 20 candidate papers for relevance to [QUERY].

Records (each has title, journal, year, cited_by, abstract):
[paste the 20 JSON records from initial-search-results.json]

Use the evaluating-paper-relevance rubric:
  Keywords (0-3) + Data type (0-4) + Specificity (0-3) = score 0-10.
Score from the abstract in the record. If a record has "abstract": "",
score from title + journal + cited_by and flag it.

Return JSON only (do NOT touch papers-reviewed.json):
{
  "scored": [
    {"doi": "10.x/...", "score": 8, "status": "relevant", "reason": "...", "no_abstract": false},
    ...
  ],
  "stats": {"highly_relevant": 3, "relevant": 5, "not_relevant": 12}
}

2. Deep Dive on Priority Papers

Scenario: Screening flagged 15 papers (score ≥8); extract data from each.

These subagents do make live calls (rp_fulltext), so cap concurrency at ~3–4 and let the shared disk cache + 429 backoff absorb collisions.

Prompt template:

Deep dive on DOI [10.xxxx/yyyy] for [QUERY].

1. Run: rp_fulltext "10.xxxx/yyyy" --out papers/<slug>.xml
   - source "elsevier-oa": text saved to disk, grep/scan it
   - source "openalex-oa": fetch the returned pdf_url (free copy) and read it
   - available:false: no OA copy exists -> extract from abstract only
2. Extract, by domain: data tables/measurements, methods, key results,
   data-availability (GEO/SRA accession, code repo).

Return JSON only (do NOT touch papers-reviewed.json):
{
  "doi": "10.xxxx/yyyy",
  "full_text_source": "elsevier-oa" | "openalex-oa" | "paywalled",
  "data_sources": ["Table 1", "Figure 3", "Supplementary Data"],
  "key_measurements": ["..."],
  "methods_summary": "...",
  "key_findings": ["..."],
  "data_availability": "GEO: GSE12345" | "Code: github.com/..." | null
}

3. Citation Network Exploration

Scenario: One strong seed; explore both directions.

rp_cite <doi> --direction both already returns backward + forward in a single call with abstracts attached, so you usually do not need two subagents per seed — one subagent per seed runs the call and scores both lists. Fan out across seeds, not across directions.

Prompt template:

Explore citations for seed DOI [10.xxxx/yyyy], relevant to [QUERY].

1. Run: rp_cite "10.xxxx/yyyy" --direction both --limit 50 \
       
2. Score every returned backward + forward record (abstracts are included).
3. Return only papers scoring >= 5 (the enqueue threshold):

{
  "seed_doi": "10.xxxx/yyyy",
  "backward_relevant": [{"doi": "...", "score": 8, "title": "...", "reason": "..."}],
  "forward_relevant":  [{"doi": "...", "score": 7, "title": "...", "reason": "..."}]
}

Do NOT touch papers-reviewed.json — return results only.

4. Domain-Specific Extraction

Adapt the deep-dive prompt's extraction list to the domain:

• Genomics: GEO/SRA/ENA accessions, sample sizes, sequencing method, DE results
• Computational: algorithm, code repo, benchmark datasets, performance metrics
• Clinical: study design, N + demographics, intervention, primary outcomes, stats
• Ecology: sites/coordinates, sampling method, taxa, environmental measurements

Workflow: Parallel Scoring

1. Fetch once (main agent): rp_search → abstracts cached. Fill gaps with

rp_abstracts if needed.

1. Split: 15–25 records per subagent. Hand each subagent its records inline.
2. Dispatch in parallel: single message, multiple Task calls. Safe to go wide here —

subagents score from handed-in records, not the network.

1. Collect: validate every DOI was scored; check rubric was applied.
2. Consolidate: merge, dedupe by DOI, sort by score, write all to

papers-reviewed.json: ``json { "10.1234/example.2023": { "status": "highlyrelevant", "score": 9, "source": "scopussearch", "screenedby": "subagentbatch1", "timestamp": "2025-10-11T14:30:00Z", "found_data": ["measurements", "methods"] } } ``

1. Quality check: if one batch's hit-rate is wildly off from the others, the rubric

may have been applied inconsistently — re-score that batch.

1. Summarize: generate SUMMARY.md, sorted by score, flag which papers need deep dive.

Workflow: Citation Exploration

1. Pick 2–3 strong seeds (score ≥7).
2. Dispatch one subagent per seed running rp_cite --direction both (cap ~3–4 live).
3. Consolidate: merge, dedupe, drop DOIs already in papers-reviewed.json, build the next

screening queue.

1. Score the new queue (parallel scoring workflow above).
2. Iterate with stopping criteria: depth ≤2, total ≤200, or diminishing returns.

Consolidation Patterns

• JSON aggregation: subagents return JSON; main agent merges, sorts by score, writes

papers-reviewed.json. Subagents never write tracking files (avoids conflicts).

• Progressive: consolidate after each subagent (sequential) — slower, incremental

visibility.

• Batch: dispatch N in parallel, consolidate the batch, repeat — the default balance.

Common Mistakes

• Claiming linear speedup from fan-out → API throughput is server-capped and shared

across subagents; only reasoning parallelizes. Fetch once, then fan out scoring.

• Fanning out live API calls → many subagents each running rp_search/fulltext

share one IP and one quota, and rp_lib's limiter is per-process so they don't coordinate → 429s. Keep live-API subagents to ≤3–4; pre-warm the disk cache.

• Subagents writing tracking files → conflicts. Subagents return JSON; main agent

writes papers-reviewed.json.

• Inconsistent scoring → give every subagent the same rubric inline.
• No quality review → never blindly trust merged output; spot-check.
• Duplicate work → split DOI lists with no overlap; dedupe on merge.
• Using PubMed/ChEMBL/Unpaywall prompts → removed. The only data tools are

rp_search/abstracts/cite/fulltext (Scopus + OpenAlex).

Cost Considerations

Subagents cost tokens. Rough per-subagent: scoring 20 records ~10–15K; deep dive 1 paper ~5–10K; citation exploration ~8–12K. Use subagents for 50+ papers; screen small searches manually. Parallelize reasoning; serialize or cap API work.

Decision Tree

Literature review task?
├─ <20 papers?      → screen manually (no subagents)
├─ 20-50 papers?
│  ├─ time-sensitive? → subagents (2-3 scoring batches)
│  └─ not urgent?     → screen manually
└─ 50+ papers?
   ├─ fetch once (main agent: rp_search/abstracts)
   ├─ score          → many parallel subagents (cache-fed, safe to go wide)
   ├─ deep dive      → ≤3-4 live subagents (rp_fulltext)
   └─ citations      → one subagent per seed (rp_cite), ≤3-4 live

Integration with Other Skills

• searching-literature (rp_search): the main agent runs this once to populate the

cache before fan-out.

• evaluating-paper-relevance: the rubric subagents apply when scoring.
• traversing-citations (rp_cite): what citation subagents run.

Next Steps After Subagent Review

1. Review consolidated results for quality/consistency.
2. Identify gaps — expected papers missing?
3. Deep dive on highly relevant papers (≤3–4 live subagents).
4. Generate final SUMMARY.md with statistics and key findings.