Agent Skills: Novelty Matrix (overlap vs delta)

Novelty Matrix (overlap vs delta)

Goal: make novelty/positioning concrete by aligning each contribution against the closest prior work.

Inputs

Required:

• output/CLAIMS.md

Optional:

• A provided list of related work (titles/URLs/DOIs) or the submission’s reference list

Outputs

• output/NOVELTY_MATRIX.md

Output format (recommended)

• Rows: contributions/claims (from output/CLAIMS.md)
• Columns: closest related works (provided or cited by the paper)
• For each row/column, record:
  • overlap: what is the same
  • delta: what is different/new
  • evidence: where this is supported (paper statement / citation / method difference)

Workflow

1. Extract the contribution list from output/CLAIMS.md.
2. Pick ≥5 closest related works (or state explicitly why you cannot).
3. For each contribution, compare to each related work:
   • identify overlap
   • identify delta
   • attach evidence (quote/section/citation pointer)
4. Summarize:
   • which contributions look clearly novel
   • which ones look like incremental variants

Definition of Done

• [ ] Matrix includes ≥5 related works or explains why unavailable.
• [ ] Every “delta” entry has a short evidence pointer (not just opinion).

Troubleshooting

Issue: no related works list is available

Fix:

• Use the paper’s own citations as the initial related set; if even that is missing, mark needs_related_work_list and stop.

Issue: overlap/delta becomes vague

Fix:

• Force each cell to reference a concrete axis (problem setting, method component, training data, evaluation protocol, result).