| name | citation-chaining |
| description | Forward and backward citation tracing tactic — expand paper coverage by tracing citation networks in both directions from seed/key papers. Alternates forward (who cited this) and backward (what this cited) passes until saturation. |
| execution | tactic |
| dependencies | {"sops":["knowledge-acquisition-paper-overview","knowledge-acquisition-paper-research","knowledge-acquisition-paper-search","knowledge-acquisition-saturation-detection"]} |
Citation Chaining
Expand paper coverage by tracing citation networks in both directions.
Operations
- Backward chaining: ss_references — what does this paper cite?
- Forward chaining: ss_citations — what cites this paper?
Available SOPs
paper-overview (import) — quick scan of discovered paperspaper-search (import) — AI summary of promising paperspaper-research (import) — deep reading of key paperssaturation-detection (subagent) — determine when to stop
Execution Guidance
- Start from seed/key papers
- Alternate forward and backward passes
- After each pass: filter by relevance, add to reading queue
- Use saturation-detection to stop when new papers aren't adding information
- Track the chain: paper A → cites B → cites C (provenance)
- Deduplicate across passes — same paper may appear in multiple chains
Available SOPs
Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.
| SOP | When to use |
|---|
| knowledge-acquisition-paper-overview | Abstract-level paper scanning for broad coverage. Import of literature-engine/literature-overview skill. Abstract-level only — no methodology conclusions from abstracts. |
| knowledge-acquisition-paper-research | Full-depth paper reading with raw text extraction. Import of literature-engine/literature-research skill. Must read fullText (true) — equations, hyperparameters, specific claims extracted. |
| knowledge-acquisition-paper-search | AI-summarized paper reading for intermediate depth. Import of literature-engine/literature-search skill. Must call get_paper_content for every analyzed paper. |
| knowledge-acquisition-saturation-detection | Determine when additional searching yields diminishing returns. Analyzes the latest expansion batch against existing corpus to judge continue/near-saturation/saturated. Used by snowball and systematic-survey. |
