Weekly research paper digest in Slack and Notion
Every Monday morning, get a curated digest of the latest papers on your watched research topics posted to Slack and archived in Notion.
Integrations
OpenAlex
Slack
Notion
Type
Categories
- Operations
- Product
Build me a weekly literature digest agent for my research team.
Trigger: cron schedule, every Monday at 8:00am local time.
Inputs the agent should read from its configuration:
- A list of research topics or search queries, for example "retrieval augmented generation" and "GLP-1 cardiovascular outcomes".
- The Slack channel to post the digest in.
- The Notion database (data source) ID that acts as the permanent paper archive. Assume the database has columns for Title, Authors, Journal/Source, DOI, Publication Date, Open Access status, Topic, and Summary.
What the agent should do on each run:
1. For each configured topic, call OpenAlex Search Works (operation 32f4ad42-e3ae-4cf7-820d-2ee5218053b0) with search set to the topic phrase, from_publication_date set to 7 days ago, sort by relevance_score desc and cited_by_count desc, and a small per_page (around 25). Pick the 3 to 5 most relevant results per topic.
2. For every candidate paper, check whether it's already in the Notion archive by calling Notion Query a Data Source (operation a2b659e0-7ad2-452d-9838-013a93b3a0f7) filtered on the DOI (or title if DOI is missing). Skip papers that already have a row.
3. For the remaining new papers, write a short plain-English summary: title, first 2-3 authors (et al. if more), source journal/venue, open access status, and a one to two sentence takeaway derived from the abstract.
4. Archive every new paper as a page in the Notion database using Notion Create a Page (operation 6ad0fce4-a48d-4dff-b1d5-32372d4941b0), filling in Title, Authors, Journal, DOI (with link), Publication Date, Open Access, Topic, and the Summary.
5. Assemble one consolidated digest message grouped by topic, with each paper rendered as a bullet using Slack mrkdwn (title as a link to the DOI or OpenAlex URL, then the one-line takeaway underneath). If no topic had any new papers, do not post.
6. Post the digest to the configured Slack channel using Slack Send a Message (operation 4c21e1ee-4d54-4413-a4f2-80a80dff4c99).
Behavioral rules: never post duplicate papers; never send an empty digest; if OpenAlex returns nothing for a topic, just note it internally and move on; keep the Slack message under ~3000 characters by trimming long takeaways.
What it does
- Every Monday at 8am, scans the academic literature for new papers published in the last 7 days that match your watched research topics.
- Picks the 3 to 5 most relevant new papers per topic, ranked by relevance and citation impact.
- Writes a short plain-English summary of each paper (title, authors, journal, open access status, key takeaway).
- Posts a single consolidated digest to your team's Slack channel and archives every paper as a row in a Notion database.
- Skips papers it has already logged, so the same paper never shows up twice.
What you’ll need
- An OpenAlex account (free) for searching the academic literature.
- A Slack workspace and the channel you want the weekly digest posted in.
- A Notion workspace with a database (with columns like Title, Authors, Journal, DOI, Date) shared with General Input.
How to customize it
- Change the schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) or the time of day the digest lands.
- Edit your list of watched topics and search queries, for example "GLP-1 cardiovascular outcomes" or "retrieval augmented generation".
- Tune how many papers per topic make the digest, or change the ranking from most cited to most recent.
- Switch the Slack channel or post to several at once, and add custom fields to the Notion archive (rating, reviewer, internal tags).
Use cases
- Research & Monitoring
- Daily Digests
- AI Reports
