claude-code-skill

Elicit Research — Claude Code Skill

Search 125M+ academic papers and generate research reports from inside Claude Code, Anthropic's CLI coding assistant.

Ask a research question in natural language and get results without leaving your terminal.

What it does

This skill teaches Claude Code how to use the Elicit API so you can:

• Search papers — Find relevant academic papers on any topic, with filters for year, study type, journal quartile, and more.
• Create reports — Generate structured literature reviews that synthesize findings across dozens of papers. Reports include summaries, evidence tables, and citations.
• List and retrieve reports — Check on previously generated reports and pull their content into your session.

Install

One command

./install.sh

Or install remotely:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elicit/api-examples/main/integrations/claude-code-skill/install.sh | bash

This copies skill.md to ~/.claude/skills/elicit-research/ where Claude Code will automatically pick it up.

Set your API key

Get a key in account settings, then add it to your shell profile:

export ELICIT_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Usage

Once installed, just ask Claude Code research questions in plain English:

> "Search for papers on transformer architectures for protein folding"

> "Find recent RCTs on cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia"

> "Create a report: What is the evidence for melatonin improving sleep quality?"

> "What does the research say about caffeine and athletic performance?"

> "Find me systematic reviews on CRISPR gene therapy outcomes published after 2021"

Search vs. Reports

Search is instant. Use it for quick lookups, finding references, or checking what exists on a topic. Results include titles, authors, years, abstracts, citation counts, and DOIs.

Reports take 5-15 minutes and give you a structured literature review. Use them for deeper questions, evidence synthesis, or when you need something you could share with collaborators. Elicit reads the full text of papers, extracts findings, and writes a report with proper citations.

Workflow examples

Researching while coding: You are implementing a new algorithm and want to know what approaches exist in the literature. Ask Claude Code to search for papers, scan the results, and keep coding.

Finding papers to cite: You are writing documentation or a research paper and need references. Search for papers and get DOIs ready to paste into your bibliography.

Exploring a new domain: Starting work in an unfamiliar area? Search to get oriented, then create a report for a thorough overview.

Making evidence-based decisions: Choosing between two approaches? Ask for a report comparing them. Elicit will find comparative studies and synthesize the evidence.

How it works

The skill is a Markdown file (skill.md) that gives Claude Code detailed instructions for calling the Elicit API via curl. When you ask a research question, Claude Code:

1. Determines whether a quick search or a full report is appropriate
2. Constructs the right API call with filters and parameters
3. Executes the request and formats the results for your terminal
4. For reports, polls for completion and presents the summary with download links

No additional dependencies are needed beyond curl and jq.

API documentation

Full API docs: docs.elicit.com