Claude Skills for Research: 4 GitHub Repos Worth Installing

The best Claude skills for research on GitHub right now are K-Dense's Scientific Agent Skills (for lab and data work), Academic Research Skills (for writing and reviewing papers), and Anthropic's own document skills (for PDFs, Word and Excel files). GPT Researcher also ships a Claude skill, but it's a developer skill for people building on GPT Researcher, not a research assistant you point at a topic.

That last point is the pattern with this whole category. A repo's name tells you very little. What matters is what the SKILL.md files actually tell Claude to do, what licence they ship under, and whether they run code on your machine. We read the README of each repo below in October 2026 and pulled the install commands straight from it.

Here's what you'll get:

• A comparison table of the four repos that matter for academic work
• What each one actually contains, per its own README
• How to install a skill in Claude Code and in Claude.ai
• What to check before you install a third-party skill

Quick Comparison: Academic Research Claude Skills

If you only install one thing for academic work, start with the repo that matches your bottleneck. Writing and reviewing papers points to Academic Research Skills. Running analyses on real scientific data points to K-Dense.

K-Dense Scientific Agent Skills: The Biggest Science Library

You may know this one by its old name. "Claude Scientific Skills" is now "Scientific Agent Skills," and the GitHub URL moved from K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-skills to K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills. Searches for "claude scientific skills" still land on it. The rename reflects that it now follows the open Agent Skills standard, so the same folders work in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other hosts.

Per the README, the collection holds 177 skills covering biology, chemistry, medicine, physics, engineering, Earth science, data analysis and scientific communication. Most of them are tied to a specific Python package or data source: RDKit, Scanpy, Biopython, PyTorch Lightning, scikit-learn and dozens more, plus a database-lookup skill that documents sources like PubChem, UniProt and ClinicalTrials.gov.

For an academic researcher outside the wet lab, the interesting part is the scientific communication and methodology set. The skills/ folder includes:

• literature-review and paper-lookup for finding and summarizing papers
• citation-management for keeping references straight
• scientific-writing and peer-review for drafting and critiquing
• research-grants and hypothesis-generation for proposal work
• statistical-analysis and statistical-power for study design
• scientific-slides and latex-posters for presenting results

Install it. The README gives two routes for Claude Code:

npx skills add K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
# or, with GitHub CLI v2.90.0+
gh skill install K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills --agent claude-code

gh skill install also takes a single skill name, which is what you want. The maintainers themselves say don't install everything at once: the repo now includes community contributions they may not have reviewed as thoroughly as their own. Pick the five or six skills that match your field.

One change worth knowing: as of version 2.72.0, K-Dense no longer bundles the docx, pdf, pptx and xlsx skills. The README tells you to get those from Anthropic's repo instead.

Academic Research Skills: Research to Publication in One Pipeline

This is the repo most people mean when they search "best claude skills github academic researcher." It's built by Imbad0202 specifically for Claude Code, and the README describes it as covering the full pipeline from research to publication: research, write, review, revise, finalize.

Per the README, it's five skills:

The design choice that stands out is human-in-the-loop by default. The README is explicit that the pipeline pauses for your sign-off at every stage and that you remain the author of every claim. It also runs integrity checks for things like citations that don't exist or don't support the claim attached to them. Just as candidly, it states the limit: it checks the manuscript and the reported process, and it can't prove an experiment was actually run.

Install it. In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add Imbad0202/academic-research-skills
/plugin install academic-research-skills

Then run /ars-plan to map out a paper, or /ars-lit-review "your topic" for a single-shot test. That's the README's own suggested first run.

Check the licence before you build on it. Academic Research Skills ships under CC BY-NC 4.0, which is a non-commercial licence. Using it for your own thesis or paper is the intended case. Bundling it into a paid product or a commercial service is not.

Anthropic's Official Skills: The Document Layer

Research runs on files: PDFs of papers, Word drafts from co-authors, Excel sheets of results. Anthropic's skills repo holds the pdf, docx, xlsx and pptx skills that, per the README, power Claude's own document features. These are what let Claude extract form fields from a PDF, edit a Word document or build a spreadsheet with working formulas.

The repo also includes skill-creator, which helps you turn your own lab procedure into a skill, and doc-coauthoring for drafting longer documents.

Two licence details from the README: many skills in the repo are open source under Apache 2.0, but the four document skills are source-available, not open source. The README also labels the whole repo as demonstration and educational material and tells you to test skills in your own environment before relying on them.

Install it. In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

In Claude.ai you don't need to install these. Anthropic's help center says the Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF skills are built in and Claude uses them automatically once code execution is on.

GPT Researcher's Claude Skill: For Builders, Not Researchers

GPT Researcher is an open-source agent that researches a question across the web or local files and writes a cited report. It has a Claude skill page in its docs, and you install it with:

npx skills add assafelovic/gpt-researcher

Read the skill file before you expect too much from it. Its description says to use it "when helping developers understand, extend, debug, or integrate with GPT Researcher." The bundled references cover the architecture, component signatures, retrievers and config options. In other words, it teaches Claude how GPT Researcher's codebase works. It doesn't turn Claude into GPT Researcher.

If what you want is GPT Researcher's actual research engine inside Claude, the repo also ships an MCP server, and that's the more direct route. If you're comparing standalone research tools rather than skills, our guide to the best AI tools for research walks through one pick per stage of a project.

How to Install a Claude Skill in Claude Code and Claude.ai

A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file: YAML frontmatter with a name and description, then instructions, plus optional scripts and reference files. According to Anthropic's Agent Skills overview, Claude only loads each skill's name and description at startup. The full instructions load when your request matches the description. That's why installing several research skills doesn't bloat every chat. If you want the longer explanation, our post on how Claude skills work covers it.

In Claude Code

You have three ways in:

1. Plugin marketplace. Run /plugin marketplace add owner/repo, then /plugin install. Academic Research Skills and Anthropic's repo both work this way.
2. An installer CLI. npx skills add owner/repo or gh skill install owner/repo, as K-Dense and GPT Researcher document.
3. By hand. Copy a skill folder into a skills directory. The Claude Code skills docs list ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md for personal skills that work across all your projects, and .claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md inside a repo for project skills you can commit and share.

Once installed, Claude picks up a skill automatically when your request matches it, or you can name it directly: "Use the literature-review skill on these five papers."

In Claude.ai

Per Anthropic's help center, skills are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans and need code execution turned on. The steps:

1. Turn on Code execution and file creation in Settings > Capabilities.
2. Zip the skill folder.
3. Go to Customize > Skills, click +, then Create skill > Upload a skill, and upload the ZIP.

Some repo features won't carry over. Academic Research Skills' README notes that its slash commands, hooks and subagent orchestration are Claude Code features. Only the research and writing methodology travels to other surfaces.

Review Third-Party Skills Before You Install Them

A skill isn't a document Claude reads. It's a set of instructions Claude follows, often with scripts it runs. Anthropic's own docs put it bluntly: use skills only from trusted sources, because a malicious skill can direct Claude to call tools or run code in ways that don't match its stated purpose.

K-Dense's README says the same thing about its own repo: skills "can execute code and influence your coding agent's behavior." Before you install any research skill:

• Read the full SKILL.md and every file in scripts/. Look for network calls, file access or package installs that don't match what the skill claims to do.
• Install only what you need. A smaller set is easier to audit and keeps Claude from triggering the wrong skill.
• Pin a version. gh skill install supports --pin with a release tag or commit SHA, so the skill can't change under you.
• Check what data leaves your machine. Academic Research Skills publishes a data-flows document listing which bibliographic services it calls. Unpublished manuscripts and patient data deserve that check.
• Verify the output. Every repo here warns that its checks are not proof. A skill that verifies citations still needs you to open the paper.

That last one matters most for academic work. If you're weighing AI help on a paper, our guide to AI for research papers covers which tasks to hand off and which to keep.

Which Research Skill to Start With

• Writing a paper or thesis: Academic Research Skills. It's built around the paper pipeline and stops for your input at each stage. Mind the non-commercial licence.
• Analyzing scientific data: K-Dense Scientific Agent Skills. Install only the package and database skills for your field.
• Working with PDFs, Word or Excel files: Anthropic's document skills. They're already built into Claude.ai.
• Building on GPT Researcher: its Claude skill. Otherwise, use its MCP server or the app itself.
• Before any of them: read the files, install a small set and pin the version.

FAQ

What are the best Claude skills on GitHub for academic researchers?

For most academics, Academic Research Skills (Imbad0202) for literature review, drafting and peer review, plus K-Dense's Scientific Agent Skills for data analysis and field-specific tools. Anthropic's document skills handle PDF, Word and Excel files.

What happened to Claude Scientific Skills?

K-Dense renamed it Scientific Agent Skills and moved it to K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills. The README says it's the same skills with broader compatibility, since it now follows the open Agent Skills standard.

Are academic research Claude skills free?

The repos are free to download. K-Dense is MIT-licensed, and Academic Research Skills is CC BY-NC 4.0, which rules out commercial reuse. Running them still uses your Claude plan or API usage.

Can a Claude skill write my paper for me?

Academic Research Skills can draft a full paper in its full mode, per its README, but it pauses for your decisions at every stage and is clear that you're accountable for every claim. Check your institution's and journal's AI-use policies before submitting anything it drafted.

Do Claude skills work in Claude.ai or only in Claude Code?

Both. In Claude.ai you upload a skill as a ZIP under Customize > Skills with code execution enabled. Repo features built for Claude Code, like slash commands and hooks, won't work there.

Are third-party Claude skills safe?

Only as safe as their contents. Skills can run code on your machine, so read the SKILL.md and scripts before installing, and prefer skills from Anthropic or maintainers you can check.

Running Research Workflows Without the Setup

Every skill above starts with a terminal command, a plugin marketplace or a ZIP upload, and that setup is where a lot of researchers stop. Taku is an AI-native desktop workspace where you can mirror an AI setup someone already got working, run it, and keep it for next week's literature review instead of rebuilding it. Taku is in Beta, and the Mac app is available now. You can browse what's already there in the Taku marketplace.