AERS routing hands-on guide

Chapter 1 · Install, then route to exactly one child Skill

Plain talk: AERS is a huge tool warehouse. You don’t need the whole building—you need the front-desk clerk to walk you to one shelf.

This chapter: install → ask via the root router → get one concrete child path.

The tree is large; we ship .tar.xz. Package free; later chapters unpack method. Always reason through the root router—don’t preload the repo.

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Where people get stuck

1. Unsure where to put the folder;
2. The assistant starts “scanning the whole library”;
3. Jumping to regression before the identification story is clear.

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1. Download & unpack

1. SkillBazaar → free Skill “Auto Empirical Research Skills (AERS)” → download .tar.xz.
2. Unpack auto-empirical-research-skills/ (root SKILL.md, skills/, catalog/, docs/, LICENSE, NOTICE).
3. Place it on your Cursor / Claude / Codex skills path; refresh.

Chinese indexes (CONTENT_ZH.md, README-zh-CN.md) help browsing; selection still goes through the root router.

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2. Copy-paste routing prompt

Use the AERS root router: I have panel data and want causal effects of a policy shock. I’m torn between classic TWFE DiD and staggered adoption DiD. Classify the task, then open exactly one best child Skill path, and explain why not plain TWFE. Do not read the whole repo.

Pass: cites Method table / CHOOSING_A_SKILL.md, names something like staggered-did or aer-identification, says “load one.”

Fail: lists dozens of folders or claims full-repo read.

If it scans everything:

Stop. Root-route one child path only. No full AERS preload.

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3. Checklist

• Root SKILL.md and catalog/skills.json (or enriched) on disk
• A concrete child path/name—not “I read all of AERS”
• At least one method risk mentioned (e.g. plain TWFE bias under staggered)
• Next time: state the goal first, then route

Scroll down for catalog model, anti-patterns, paper staging, and CC BY-SA duties.