--- title: "academic-research-skills vs lever" type: "comparison" canonical_url: "https://www.graphcanon.com/compare/imbad0202-academic-research-skills-vs-niansong1996-lever" tools: ["imbad0202-academic-research-skills", "niansong1996-lever"] --- # academic-research-skills vs lever *GraphCanon updated Jul 11, 2026* ## Verdict Pick academic-research-skills when license: academic-research-skills is Other, lever is MIT; pick lever when license: lever is MIT, academic-research-skills is Other. [academic-research-skills](https://buymeacoffee.com/crucify020v) reports 37k GitHub stars, 3.0k forks, and 9 open issues, last pushed Jul 11, 2026. [lever](https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.08468) has 90 stars, 8 forks, and 2 open issues, last pushed Jul 5, 2023. Figures are from public GitHub metadata via [academic-research-skills's repository](https://github.com/Imbad0202/academic-research-skills) and [lever's repository](https://github.com/niansong1996/lever). | | [academic-research-skills](/tools/imbad0202-academic-research-skills.md) | [lever](/tools/niansong1996-lever.md) | | --- | --- | --- | | Tagline | Academic Research Skills for Claude Code: research → write → review → revise → finalize | Code for paper "LEVER: Learning to Verifiy Language-to-Code Generation with Execution" (ICML'23) | | Stars | 37,300 | 90 | | Forks | 3,043 | 8 | | Open issues | 9 | 2 | | Language | Python | Python | | Adopt for | - | - | | Persona | - | - | | Runtime | - | - | | License | Other | MIT | | Categories | Data & Retrieval, LLM Frameworks | Data & Retrieval | ## Trust and health _Sourced signals - not a safety guarantee. No winner column._ | | [academic-research-skills](/tools/imbad0202-academic-research-skills.md) | [lever](/tools/niansong1996-lever.md) | | --- | --- | --- | | Maintenance | Very active (96%) | Dormant (18%) | | Days since push | 0d | 1102d | | Open issues (now) | 9 | 2 | | Security scan | No lockfile | No criticals | | Full report | [trust report](/tools/imbad0202-academic-research-skills/trust.md) | [trust report](/tools/niansong1996-lever/trust.md) | ## Choose when ### Choose academic-research-skills if… - License: academic-research-skills is Other, lever is MIT. - Tags unique to academic-research-skills: academic-pipeline, academic-writing, ai-research, claude. - Also covers LLM Frameworks. ### Choose lever if… - License: lever is MIT, academic-research-skills is Other. - Tags unique to lever: python. - Leaner open-issue backlog (2). ## When NOT to use academic-research-skills - Data & Retrieval: Skip a heavy ingestion framework when your corpus is small and static; a script plus the embedding API is enough. - LLM Frameworks: Avoid a framework for a single prompt-and-retrieve call; the abstraction can cost more than it saves. ## When NOT to use lever - Last GitHub push was 1103 days ago (dormant maintenance, Jul 5, 2023). Validate activity before betting a new project on lever. - Data & Retrieval: Skip a heavy ingestion framework when your corpus is small and static; a script plus the embedding API is enough. ## Common questions ### What is the difference between academic-research-skills and lever? academic-research-skills: Academic Research Skills for Claude Code: research → write → review → revise → finalize. lever: Code for paper "LEVER: Learning to Verifiy Language-to-Code Generation with Execution" (ICML'23). See the comparison table for live GitHub stats and shared categories. ### When should I choose academic-research-skills over lever? Choose academic-research-skills over lever when License: academic-research-skills is Other, lever is MIT; Tags unique to academic-research-skills: academic-pipeline, academic-writing, ai-research, claude; Also covers LLM Frameworks. ### When should I choose lever over academic-research-skills? Choose lever over academic-research-skills when License: lever is MIT, academic-research-skills is Other; Tags unique to lever: python; Leaner open-issue backlog (2). ### When should I avoid academic-research-skills? Data & Retrieval: Skip a heavy ingestion framework when your corpus is small and static; a script plus the embedding API is enough. LLM Frameworks: Avoid a framework for a single prompt-and-retrieve call; the abstraction can cost more than it saves. ### When should I avoid lever? Last GitHub push was 1103 days ago (dormant maintenance, Jul 5, 2023). Validate activity before betting a new project on lever. Data & Retrieval: Skip a heavy ingestion framework when your corpus is small and static; a script plus the embedding API is enough. ### Is academic-research-skills or lever more popular on GitHub? academic-research-skills has more GitHub stars (37,300 vs 90). Stars measure visibility, not whether either tool fits your constraints. ### Are academic-research-skills and lever open source? Yes - both are open-source projects on GitHub (academic-research-skills: Other, lever: MIT). ### Where can I find alternatives to academic-research-skills or lever? GraphCanon lists graph-backed alternatives at [academic-research-skills alternatives](/tools/imbad0202-academic-research-skills/alternatives) and [lever alternatives](/tools/niansong1996-lever/alternatives) ([academic-research-skills markdown twin](/tools/imbad0202-academic-research-skills/alternatives.md), [lever markdown twin](/tools/niansong1996-lever/alternatives.md)), ranked by typed relationship edges rather than popularity votes. ### Is there a machine-readable version of this comparison? Yes. The markdown twin at [this comparison](/compare/imbad0202-academic-research-skills-vs-niansong1996-lever.md) mirrors this page for agents and LLM crawlers, with the same stats table and FAQ answers. ### Which is better maintained, academic-research-skills or lever? academic-research-skills: Very active. lever: Dormant. Compare maintenance labels, days since push, and release cadence in the trust section below - stars alone do not measure maintenance. ### Where are the full trust reports for academic-research-skills and lever? GraphCanon publishes per-repo trust reports with dated maintenance, provenance, and scan summaries: [academic-research-skills trust report](/tools/imbad0202-academic-research-skills/trust); [lever trust report](/tools/niansong1996-lever/trust). --- **Machine-readable endpoints** - JSON: [`/api/graphcanon/graph?tool=imbad0202-academic-research-skills`](/api/graphcanon/graph?tool=imbad0202-academic-research-skills) - LLM index: [/llms.txt](/llms.txt) - Full corpus: [/llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt) _GraphCanon - The knowledge graph for AI development. https://www.graphcanon.com/_