ccf-idea-optimizer
mikubaka88/ccfa-skills
Develop rough research ideas into concrete problems, mechanisms, and evidence plans for CCF venues.
What is ccf-idea-optimizer?
Transforms preliminary research directions into well-grounded ideas with clear problems, causal insights, and falsifiable evidence plans. Use this when you need to move from a vague direction to a concrete, development-ready research proposal—distinguishing what's source-backed from what's inferred, and identifying the minimum evidence needed to test the core claim.
- Extract and clarify decision, field, stage, resources, and timeline from rough inputs
- Ground ideas in closest prior work and identify genuine gaps without inventing prior results
- Generate meaningfully different candidate directions when an idea is underdetermined
- Connect problem, root challenge, insight, mechanism, and expected observations into a coherent blueprint
- Outline minimum discriminating evidence and compatible datasets for the central claim
- Distinguish development potential from current weakness and identify concrete rescue routes
How to install ccf-idea-optimizer
npx skills add https://github.com/mikubaka88/ccfa-skills --skill ccf-idea-optimizerHow to use ccf-idea-optimizer
- 1.Describe your rough idea, field, venue (if known), timeline, and any available sources or constraints
- 2.The skill will extract your decision and stage, then ground the idea in closest prior work if needed
- 3.Review the developed problem statement, causal insight, and mechanism blueprint
- 4.Examine the outlined evidence plan and identify any material assumptions or unknowns
- 5.Use the output as a handoff to experiment design, writing, or further development with other skills
Use cases
- Rescue a promising research seed that feels incomplete or stuck by clarifying its mechanism and evidence plan
- Develop a vague direction into a submission-ready idea card with grounded problem, gap, and method
- Compare 3–5 structurally different approaches to the same research question and pick the strongest
- Ground a novel mechanism claim by identifying closest prior work and what would falsify it
- Plan the minimum evidence needed to test a causal insight before committing to full experiments
- Researchers at early ideation or direction-finding stage
- PhD students developing thesis topics or paper ideas
- Teams exploring novel mechanisms or interventions in CCF-relevant areas
- Anyone needing to move from rough seeds to concrete, development-ready research plans
ccf-idea-optimizer FAQ
Use this skill to develop and optimize a rough idea into a concrete plan. Use ccf-idea-reviewer to judge whether a mature idea is worthwhile, novel, or coherent—it handles standalone assessments like '靠谱吗' or '值得做吗' without scores.
Yes, when needed for grounding. It uses public-safe search and honors no-browsing requests. Unsearched novelty is labeled accurately. For deeper literature retrieval, it can hand off to ccf-literature-searcher.
The skill loads intake normalization to extract the core decision, field, and stage. It marks unknowns explicitly and helps you choose between competing directions or rescue promising ingredients before judging readiness.
No. It outlines the minimum discriminating evidence, compatible datasets, baselines, and metrics. Full execution protocols belong to ccf-experiment-designer when requested.
The skill is optimized for CCF-A venues using venue-specific adapters. For other venues, it applies a generic research-development lens; results may be less tailored.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from mikubaka88/ccfa-skills.
name: ccf-idea-optimizer description: "Develop and optimize rough CCF research ideas into problems, insights, mechanisms, and evidence plans. Use for 优化idea, 具象化idea, 找方向, 方向探索, and rescue routes when development is the requested deliverable. Judging whether an idea is worthwhile, novel, or coherent belongs to ccf-idea-reviewer even without scores; manuscript edits belong to ccf-paper-writer." metadata: ccf_skill_controls: handoff_question_mode: partial respect_session_denylists: true protect_idea_scope_in_writing: true private_material_safety: moderate shared_controls: ../ccf-common/references/
CCF Idea Optimizer
Family File Contract
Before writing, resolve the canonical output and one stable working directory per task/artifact. Reuse explicit or established task paths; otherwise use project-root ccfa-workfiles/<purpose>/<artifact-id>/, with source/, assets/, cache/, and build/ only as needed. Update current files in place; do not scatter intermediates or create iteration copies. Preserve inputs and required evidence; clean only verified disposable files created by this task. Use UTF-8 text I/O and check Chinese text after saving or rendering. For file work, apply artifact-contracts.md and reuse the same paths across skill transitions.
Collaboration Contract
Before specialist execution, read and apply ccf-humanization first, then ccf-common. At every handoff, reuse their applicable active rules or refresh missing/changed ones. Both preflights are required even without prose; detailed editing, experiment, and maintenance modes run only when relevant.
Keep one integrating owner and actively use other skills to resolve missing prerequisites or check material findings. Reuse applicable evidence; do not skip necessary groundwork to save tokens. Before finalizing, integrate contributions and verify affected results. Follow the conditional cooperation routes; avoid unrelated stages and duplicate reports.
Invocation Controls
CCFA Handoff Mode: PARTIAL (Recommended). Follow metadata.ccf_skill_controls.handoff_question_mode, ../ccf-common/references/handoff-modes.md, and ../ccf-common/references/task-modes.md. Complete requested idea development and necessary public-safe grounding under existing authorization. Do not load scoring, writing, or full experiment-design workflows unless their deliverables are requested or needed.
Core Rule
Turn a rough direction into a concrete problem, grounded gap, causal insight, mechanism, and falsifiable evidence plan. Distinguish source-backed observations from inferred opportunities. Do not invent prior work, results, reviewer sentiment, or novelty. Related work should clarify differentiation; an unsearched or crowded direction is uncertain, not automatically dead.
Preserve the user's theme and constraints. Vary framing or mechanism within the authorized development scope, and explain consequential changes. A useful idea has a coherent reason the intervention should change an observable result; a list of familiar modules is insufficient.
Modes
- Exploratory: develop rough seeds, find directions, and rescue promising ingredients before judging readiness.
- Quick: repair one local mechanism or give a concise idea card.
- Standard: ground a mature direction and produce a handoff-ready research plan.
Workflow
- Extract the user's decision, field, stage, resources, timeline, and available sources. Infer routine details and mark unknowns. Load
references/idea-intake.mdonly for messy or incomplete inputs; do not restart intake when the conversation already supplies them. - When venue fit matters, use
../ccf-common/references/ccf-a-venue-map.mdand the relevantreferences/venue-idea-adapters.mdpassage. An unspecified venue can use a labeled generic CCF-A lens. - Ground timeliness and closest work when needed for the request. Use
../ccf-common/references/privacy-and-evidence.mdbefore browsing; search public-safe terms. Useccf-literature-monitorfor recent-paper watch andccf-literature-searcherfor deeper retrieval. Honor no-browsing requests and label unsearched novelty accurately. - When sources are available, use
references/literature-grounded-evolution.mdto retain compact evidence cards, mechanism primitives, protocol anchors, and unresolved relations. Keep source locations rather than loading whole abstracts repeatedly. Trace borrowed ideas and inferred gaps separately. - For an underdetermined direction, use
references/frontier-ideation.mdto generate meaningfully different candidates. Three to five is a starting range, not a quota; one well-specified idea needs targeted improvement, not a forced tournament. Keep meaningful lineage and operations such as refine, combine, transfer, invert, or instrument internally. - Use
references/problem-method-blueprint.mdto connect problem, root challenge, insight, mechanism, assumptions, and expected observation. Check incompatible data assumptions, objectives, or resources. Keep the strongest route and a genuinely different fallback when useful. - Challenge the route against the closest-overlap concern and its weakest evidence link. Use
ccf-idea-reviewerfor a focused conceptual check when a material value, novelty, or mechanism uncertainty remains; integrate its findings and verify the revised route. Reuse applicable checks and avoid critique that merely paraphrases the idea. A user-requested standalone assessment, including “靠谱吗” or “值得做吗” without scores, remains the reviewer's deliverable. - Use
references/experiment-design.mdto outline the minimum convincing evidence for the central claim: compatible datasets, baselines, metrics, and discriminating tests. A full execution protocol belongs toccf-experiment-designerwhen requested. Planned results remain predictions to test, not evidence. - Return the developed idea in the user's requested shape. For a weak seed, distinguish current weakness from development potential and identify a concrete rescue or reformulation before recommending abandonment. If a required decision remains open, explain the exact evidence needed and finish the independent parts.
Output Contract
Return an idea card, options, mechanism blueprint, or roadmap as requested. A standard plan contains the problem, source-backed gap, insight, method, contribution type, evidence plan, closest-work difference, material assumptions, and next decision. Include candidate alternatives only when developed and useful. Keep branch bookkeeping, reviewer simulation, and generic checklist status out of publication prose.
Use necessary grounding and conceptual checks within development; do not turn their internal findings into an unrequested score report or manuscript. For a combined requested workflow, complete each deliverable with its owner under existing authorization.
References
references/idea-intake.md: normalize incomplete or multiple seeds.references/frontier-ideation.md,references/literature-grounded-evolution.md: diverse development and source-grounded evolution.references/problem-method-blueprint.md: problem-to-mechanism reasoning.references/venue-idea-adapters.md: applicable venue priorities.references/experiment-design.md: minimum discriminating evidence.references/research-taste.md: explicit questions about research quality, elegance, and timeliness.references/source-notes.md: source provenance and current-policy checks.
Related skills
More from mikubaka88/ccfa-skills and the wider catalog.

ccf-idea-reviewer
Assess research ideas for novelty, value, insight, and conceptual coherence without requiring experiments.

ccf-integrity-auditor
Audit CCF claims, numbers, and citations against supplied evidence—no invention, full traceability.

ccf-literature-monitor
Monitor arXiv, OpenReview, and venue feeds for papers overlapping your research idea.

ccf-literature-searcher
Find and verify external literature, prior art, datasets, benchmarks, and citation candidates for research positioning.

ccf-paper-reviewer
Review manuscript claims, evidence, and writing quality without rewriting prose.

ccf-paper-to-exemplar
Distill academic papers into reusable writing exemplar cards with source attribution preserved.