Communications-domain literature review with Claude-style knowledge-base-first retrieval. Use when the task is about communications, wireless, networking, satellite/NTN, Wi-Fi, cellular, transport protocols, congestion control, routing, scheduling, MAC/PHY, rate adaptation, channel estimation, beamforming, or communication-system research and the user wants papers, related work, a survey, or a landscape summary. Search Zotero, Obsidian, and local paper folders first when available, then search IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, ACM Digital Library, and broader web in that order.
Communications-domain literature review with Claude-style knowledge-base-first retrieval. Use when the task is about communications, wireless, networking, satellite/NTN, Wi-Fi, cellular, transport protocols, congestion control, routing, scheduling, MAC/PHY, rate adaptation, channel estimation, beamforming, or communication-system research and the user wants papers, related work, a survey, or a landscape summary. Search Zotero, Obsidian, and local paper folders first when available, then search IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, ACM Digital Library, and broader web in that order.
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Comm Lit Review
Research topic: $ARGUMENTS
Purpose
Use this skill for communications-domain literature review when the topic is about:
wireless communications
cellular systems, 4G/5G/6G, NR, NTN
satellite, LEO, GEO, integrated space-air-ground systems
rate adaptation, link adaptation, ACM, HARQ, CSI feedback
transport protocols and congestion control in communication networks
cross-layer optimization for communication systems
If the center of gravity is generic ML architecture research, pure control theory without communications literature, or software/API documentation rather than papers, fall back to a general literature skill.
Constants
PAPER_LIBRARY: Check local PDFs in this order:
papers/ in the current project
literature/ in the current project
Custom path specified by the user in CLAUDE.md under ## Paper Library
MAX_LOCAL_PAPERS = 20: Maximum number of local PDFs to scan. If there are more, prioritize by filename and first-page relevance.
Source Selection
Parse $ARGUMENTS for a — sources: directive.
If — sources: is specified, only search the listed sources.
If not specified, default to:
zotero
obsidian
local
ieee
sciencedirect
acm
web
Valid source values:
zotero
obsidian
local
ieee
sciencedirect
acm
web
all
If all is specified, interpret it as the full default source set.
Retrieval Order
This is a knowledge-base-first skill. Search in this order unless the user overrides it:
Zotero
Obsidian
local papers/ and literature/
IEEE Xplore
ScienceDirect
ACM Digital Library
broader web
Graceful degradation rules:
If a source is unavailable, do not fail.
Skip it silently.
Continue to the next source.
External Search Policy
For external search:
prefer IEEE Xplore first
then ScienceDirect
then ACM
then broader web only when needed
Publication policy:
prefer peer-reviewed journals and major conferences
label workshop papers as workshop
label arXiv-only or author-hosted versions as preprint
if both preprint and formal version exist, cite the formal version first
Time-window policy:
if the user does not specify a year range, include both a short foundational set and a recent set
recommended split:
foundational: before 2022
recent: 2022 to present
Venue Priority
Within each database tier, search venue tiers in this order.
Tier A
Journals:
IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC)
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN)
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC)
IEEE Transactions on Communications (TCOM)
Conferences:
ACM SIGCOMM
USENIX NSDI
ACM MobiCom
ACM CoNEXT
IEEE INFOCOM
Tier B
Journals:
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT)
IEEE Wireless Communications Letters (WCL)
IEEE Communications Letters
Computer Networks
Computer Communications
Ad Hoc Networks
Physical Communication
Conferences:
IEEE ICC
IEEE GLOBECOM
IEEE WCNC
IEEE PIMRC
ACM MobiHoc
Tier C
other relevant IEEE journals and transactions
other relevant Elsevier journals
other clearly relevant ACM conferences and workshops
topic-specific satellite, optical, vehicular, IoT, aerial, or edge communications venues
Usage rules:
start from Tier A
widen to Tier B if needed
widen to Tier C if still sparse
only then broaden to full web search
by default this is a soft priority, not a hard whitelist
if the user says only top venues, top journals only, or top conferences only, treat Tier A as a hard filter
Workflow
Step 0a: Search Zotero Library
Skip this step if Zotero MCP is not configured or zotero is not enabled.
If available:
search by topic
capture title, authors, year, venue
pull user annotations, tags, or collections when present
treat these as high-priority evidence because they reflect the user's existing library
Step 0b: Search Obsidian Vault
Skip this step if Obsidian MCP is not configured or obsidian is not enabled.
If available:
search topic-related notes
collect summaries, wikilinks, tags, and paper references
treat these notes as the user's processed understanding of the topic
Step 0c: Scan Local Paper Library
Run this step if local is enabled.
locate PDFs from papers/**/*.pdf and literature/**/*.pdf
de-duplicate against Zotero hits when possible
read the first pages of relevant PDFs
extract title, authors, year, problem, method, and relevance
use local hits to guide and de-duplicate later external search
Step 1: Search External Primary Sources
Use a layered search strategy. For communications topics, avoid random blog posts or tertiary summaries.
Database ladder:
ieeexplore.ieee.org
sciencedirect.com
dl.acm.org
broader web using primary publisher pages, official conference sites, DOI pages, and author-hosted copies of already-identified formal papers
Move to the next database tier only when:
the higher-priority tier is too sparse
the topic clearly publishes elsewhere
the user explicitly asks for broader coverage
Within each database tier:
start from Tier A venues
widen to Tier B if needed
widen to Tier C if still sparse
Step 2: Extract Paper-Level Facts
For each relevant paper, capture:
Title
Authors
Year
Venue
Layer or system scope
Scenario and assumptions
Core method
Main result or claim
Limitation
Relevance to the user's topic
Source URL
Source origin: zotero, obsidian, local, ieee, sciencedirect, acm, or web
Favor concrete numbers, assumptions, and problem definitions over generic paraphrases.
Do not collapse transport-layer rate control and PHY/MAC rate adaptation into one bucket without saying so explicitly.
Synthesis Rules
Group papers by technical axis rather than by search order. Common groupings:
PHY/MAC adaptation
transport and congestion control
NTN and satellite resource management
cross-layer or learning-based control
measurement and empirical studies
When useful, explicitly separate:
foundational vs recent work
formal publications vs preprints
top-tier vs lower-tier venues
single-link vs multi-user formulations
simulation-only vs deployment-backed work
user-owned sources vs newly surfaced external papers
If evidence is weak, say so instead of smoothing it over.
Output
ONE PAPER PER SUBSECTION, full title in the heading — NEVER a literature table (paper tables are unreadable):
