| name | missing-lit |
| description | Find gaps in the literature based on existing Obsidian notes. Searches for high-quality articles the author may have missed. |
Missing Literature Finder
When to Use
Invoke periodically (every 4–6 weeks) or when starting a new paper chapter. Finds structural gaps in the literature collection.
Important: Note Location
Literature notes live in literature/zotero-notes/ in the project directory.
Each note is named @{citekey}.md with structured YAML frontmatter.
See .claude/rules/literature-notes.md for the exact format.
Steps
- Read all
@*.md notes in literature/zotero-notes/
- Each note has YAML frontmatter with:
citekey, paper_type, tags, authors, year, journal
- Tags use lowercase kebab-case:
forced-migration, DiD, Germany, etc.
- Paper types:
empirical, theoretical, review, methodological, report, mixed
- Extract dimensions from frontmatter and note content:
- Topics (from
tags)
- Methods (from
tags — e.g., DiD, IV, RDD)
- Geographies (from
tags — e.g., Germany, Turkey)
- Datasets (from
tags and note body)
- Time periods (from note body)
- Cited authors (from
authors field)
- Identify structural gaps:
- Methods used in related fields but not yet applied to the author's topic
- Geographic regions with relevant phenomena but no empirical work in the collection
- Datasets mentioned in papers but not yet exploited
- Recent working papers (NBER, IZA, CEPR, SSRN) not in the collection
- Seminal papers from the domain profile not yet in notes
- Paper types underrepresented (e.g., all empirical, no methodological)
- Search for recent papers in:
- Top-5 journals + field journals (from journal-profiles.md)
- NBER working papers
- IZA discussion papers
- CEPR discussion papers
- SSRN
- Append findings to
literature/missing-lit.md with:
- Date stamp
- Paper title, authors, year, source
- Relevance score (1–5)
- Why it matters for the dissertation
- Which paper(s) it's most relevant to
- Flag any paper that could directly challenge or strengthen the author's identification strategy
Output Format
Prepend new entries to literature/missing-lit.md (append-only file):
## YYYY-MM-DD — Missing Literature Scan
### Scanned
- Notes folder: {output_folder from config}
- Total notes read: {N}
- Paper types: {N} empirical, {N} theoretical, {N} review, {N} methodological
- Geographies covered: {list}
- Methods covered: {list}
### High Priority
- **Author (Year)** "Title" — *Journal*
Relevance: 5/5. [Why it matters]. Relevant to Paper [N].
### Medium Priority
- ...
### Gaps Identified
[Summary of structural gaps found in this scan]
Important
- Follow the deprecation protocol for append-only files
- Never remove existing entries
- If an entry was wrong, add a correction entry rather than editing
- Respect the existing YAML frontmatter format — do not propose changes to how notes are structured