Research & Search
Research agent skills teach AI agents to gather and synthesize information properly: literature reviews, competitive analysis, web research with citations, and structured summaries. Each SKILL.md encodes a method, not just a prompt, so results stay consistent across runs.
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mariourquia Skill ExploreCreate a new Obsidian vault for any topic and seed it with an initial knowledge base from web research. Use when the user wants to explore a new idea, start a research project, or create a dedicated space for a tangent they want to investigate later.
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mariourquia Skill New VaultCreate a new Obsidian vault. Modes -- project (for a git project), topic (research a topic with web seeding), preset (from a vault template), existing (connect to an existing vault).
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kevin-liu-01 Bundle Exa SearchWeb toolkit powered by Exa, tuned for scientific and technical content. Use this skill when the user needs to search the web or fetch/extract URL content. Covers: web search (semantic lookups, research, current info — with optional research-paper category and academic domain filtering) and URL extraction (fetching pages, articles, academic PDFs in batch). Use this skill for web-related tasks when the user wants high-quality search or scholarly filtering via category=research paper. Triggers on requests to search, look up, fetch a page, or extract an article.
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kevin-liu-01 Bundle Citation ManagementComprehensive citation management for academic research. Search OpenAlex, PubMed, and Google Scholar for papers, extract accurate metadata, validate citations, and generate properly formatted BibTeX entries. This skill should be used when you need to find papers, verify citation information, convert DOIs to BibTeX, or ensure reference accuracy in scientific writing.
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saubakirov Skill Tfw ResearchCommand /tfw-research runs structured Trace-First Workflow research and creates RES plus stage traces. Use for /tfw-research, a TFW investigation, a research iteration, or a RES artifact.
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skyfiredao Skill Dp Tool ResearchUse when starting a new story, developing a premise, exploring narrative concepts, researching real-world details for worldbuilding accuracy and authenticity, or performing author tuning to adjust chapter direction after reading completed chapters
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sleevesun Bundle Summarize Woa Chat按用户指定的群聊或联系人,在 macOS 或 Windows 上按需读取本机 WOA 聊天记录并生成可追溯的中文总结。用于“总结 WOA 群聊”、“回顾与某联系人的沟通”、“提取近期 WOA 决定、待办或风险”等请求;未指定时间时默认读取最近 15 天。也用于新设备上的 WOA 读取环境检查、平台适配和首次依赖安装。
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spark-to-paper-skills Bundle TS Paper WriteStage 3 of the ts-paper suite. Draft every section of a Traitement du Signal paper as LaTeX body files (sections/<id>.tex + abstract.tex) from the blueprint and refs.bib, following strict per-section recipes, the no-fabricated-results rule, and IIETA citation style. Write ALL sections in one pass. Use when writing the body of a TS proposal paper.
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spark-to-paper-skills Bundle TS Paper ExperimentRepair an AI-generated scientific paper draft by diagnosing research logic, completing feasible experiments, rewriting the experiment section, and updating the full manuscript for claim-evidence consistency.
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catcatcatstudio Bundle ReconPre-build decision intelligence. Produces opinionated decision brief — the senior- consultant week-1 output before scope, stack, or approach are locked. Surfaces traps and edges, calibrated to project scope (prototype vs production vs enterprise). Use when user says '/recon', 'what to watch out for building X', 'where's the edge', 'common mistakes with X', starts a new project, or hits domain uncertainty mid-build. NOT for: debugging, single-API research, URL extraction (/eat), or post-build optimization (/fortify).
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catcatcatstudio Bundle ProdevPro mode — engineering standard enforcement. Forces senior-engineer behavior: root-cause discipline, layer awareness, current-gen API verification, blast-radius thinking, caller-first API design, no stubs, no sycophantic agreement, no unverified assumptions. Invoke via /prodev or 'prodev' — always run via Skill tool, never skip or summarize.
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catcatcatstudio Skill Scorched EarthObsessively thorough analysis. Three modes: build (find every issue in a codebase), intake (extract everything from a URL or reference), research (exhaustive investigation of a topic). Use when surface-level isn't enough and you need certainty nothing was missed. Triggers: '/scorched-earth', 'go scorched earth', 'find everything', 'leave no stone unturned', 'I need to be thorough'.
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ai-business-tools Bundle Summary GeneralSummarizer for news articles, blog posts, videos, and podcasts. Structured summaries with citations, thesis, themes, and critical analysis. Not for academic papers; use summary-academic. Triggers on "summarize this", "summarize this article", "general summary", "/general-summary", "quick summary", "brief summary", and "/general-summary quick".
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ai-business-tools Bundle Summary AcademicAcademic paper summarizer for papers, research articles, and scholarly publications. Structured summaries with citations, thesis, conclusions, methodology, implications, and critical analysis. Triggers on "summarize this paper", "summarize this research", "academic summary", "/academic-summary", "quick academic summary", "brief paper summary", and "/academic-summary quick".
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ai-business-tools Bundle Knowledge Base UpdateKnowledge base sync and health check for the knowledge-base skill. Scans all topic folders, regenerates index.md from every summary's frontmatter so new documents appear and rows for deleted files drop out, refreshes topic descriptions, cleans up stale split directories, and reports health issues (missing summaries, naming inconsistencies, orphaned files, duplicate content). Triggers on "kb update", "kb up", "update kb", and "kb sync".
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nextaltair Skill Check ExistingBefore implementing a feature, hear out the requirement, then research existing libraries / tools / local packages (monorepo components) that already solve it. Use when scoping a new feature, evaluating build-vs-reuse, or asked to find existing solutions before writing code.
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paulnsorensen Skill ResearchMulti-source research orchestrator that routes questions across Context7 library docs, Tavily web research, codebase analysis, and GitHub examples, then returns a compact synthesis with confidence scoring.
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rp7o Skill Shaper MarketFull-spectrum market research across problem space, competitive landscape, and market sizing. Use when validating a business idea against real evidence.
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rp7o Skill Shaper StatusShow current business state, canvas progress, research status, validation decision, and recommended next steps. Read-only — does not modify any files.
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rp7o Skill Maker ResearchInvestigate a specific technology, API, library, framework, competitor, or market. Use when the user says "research [topic]", before making a stack decision, when comparing alternatives, or when validating assumptions about users or market. Accepts a topic as argument.
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theodoread Bundle Research LibraryUse when working with, adding to, or updating the shared cross-project research library at $RESEARCH_HOME (vendor repo clones, reference PDFs/epubs, mirrored docs pages) — before fetching the same material from the web, when cloning a reference repo for a project, or when asked to update/refresh the library. Also owns judging a named third-party package or repo before depending on it: whether it is still maintained, who is actually committing to it, how often it releases on its stable line, whether it ships py.typed, how much test suite is behind it, whether a version cap it carries will hold you back — read from PyPI, the GitHub API and the project's own source rather than from a search summary.
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tuliosousapro Skill Idea ValidatorStructured validation framework that scores product ideas. Use when evaluating problem severity, willingness-to-pay, or founder-market fit. For market intelligence, see market-research.
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voxpelli Bundle People IntelThis skill should be used when the user asks to 'research person', 'person intel', 'people intel', 'who is [person]', 'who created [project]', 'who maintains [package]', 'add person to knowledge graph', 'enrich person note', 'update person note', 'document [person]', 'create person note for [name]'. Researches a person using five-source enrichment (Basic Memory, Raindrop, Readwise, Tavily, DeepWiki) and creates/updates a structured Basic Memory person note with post-write cross-linking.
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voxpelli Skill Session BookmarksThis skill should be used to save URLs or links found this session as Raindrop bookmarks — triggers: 'bookmark URLs from this session', 'save links we found', 'save notable URLs to Raindrop', 'save session URLs', 'raindrop bookmarks from session'. Scans the current conversation for high-signal URLs discovered during research, previews 1-3 bookmark candidates, and creates them in the AI-bookmarked Raindrop collection after user approval. This is URL/link bookmarking to Raindrop — to capture insights, decisions, or lessons into the Basic Memory knowledge graph instead, use session-reflect.
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tygwan Skill Context OptimizerOptimize context loading for efficient token usage. Use when working with large codebases, context limits, or when the user mentions "context", "token", "optimize", "summarize", or asks to reduce context size.
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sjdjdiejdrirhdkjej Bundle Create Meta PromptsCreate optimized prompts for Claude-to-Claude pipelines with research, planning, and execution stages. Use when building prompts that produce outputs for other prompts to consume, or when running multi-stage workflows (research -> plan -> implement).
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saikaaco Skill WfUse automatically when genuine confusion, vagueness, missing authority, contradictory evidence, or unclear acceptance could change the work. Research discoverable facts first; route a gap resolvable by one human decision to Bounded Grilling, and larger or dependent fog—where one decision would not settle the route—to Wayfinder LIGHT. Use FULL only for its existing persistence signals; also use when the user invokes /wf.
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saikaaco Skill Context Budget OrchestrationUse when work is multi-step, context-heavy, research-heavy, or delegated. Contains bulky context, phases work, bounds retries, delegates independent reasoning, and reserves capacity for verification.
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agent-rig Skill Rig SpikeRun a time-boxed research spike to answer an open technical question or de-risk an approach BEFORE committing to implementation. Produces written findings + a recommendation (and optionally a throwaway prototype), not production code. Use when the team needs to evaluate feasibility, compare options, or reduce uncertainty before a feature is planned. Triggers on: 'spike', 'research spike', 'investigate', 'evaluate feasibility', 'de-risk', 'proof of concept', 'POC', 'compare options', 'can we', 'what would it take'.
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zuimengyz Bundle Work CreationCreate or revise a historical-drama Work from research context. Use when defining literary premise, theme, viewpoint, relationships, central conflict, dramatic timeline, or the overall structure of the source work.
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catwillgh Bundle Mainframe ResearchVerify and connect current or disputed external claims through authoritative sources, provenance tracing, cross-checking, and quantitative validation. Use proactively when several dependent claims, conflicting evidence, or a consequential time-sensitive fact requires a bounded research block. Do not use for repository exploration, one routine lookup, implementation, or a user-owned decision.
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closetheloops Skill Moradin DecideStage 4 of the Forge — turn the research options into locked decisions. Constraints elicited before options shown, choices made by clicking the options page, every choice recorded as a compact decision record with why-nots and event-based revisit triggers. Accepted decisions are never relitigated, only superseded.
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closetheloops Skill Moradin MeasureStage 2 of the Forge — write the Success Contract before any tool research or code. One metric that matters with a kill threshold, max 3 supporting signals, an anti-vanity list, the traffic question, and instrumentation named up front. Writes .forge/measure.md.
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leadmagic Skill Jobs Hiring IntentLeadMagic hiring research from public job search. Use when ranking accounts by open roles, researching hiring evidence, or building a hiring-based outreach brief.
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jackxu1978 Skill Tai Chi Sword For Older AdultsPractical guide for adults 60+ starting tai chi sword (tai chi jian / 太极剑). Covers safety screening, fall-prevention benefits backed by research, senior-friendly sword weight and length, wooden vs steel training swords, seated and low-stance modifications, realistic first-year learning paths, and class vs home practice. Use when a user asks whether tai chi sword is good or safe for seniors or older beginners, whether they are too old to start tai chi sword, tai chi sword for balance or fall prevention, tai chi sword with arthritis or joint problems, what sword an older adult should buy, or how a senior should begin learning tai chi sword.
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lx050 Bundle Research Provenance LedgerRegister local research materials in an append-only provenance ledger, capture SHA-256, size, MIME, source, license, and rights status, and reverify originals or copies without executing them. Use when a research workflow needs auditable material intake, duplicate-ID protection, integrity checks, or explicit hash-mismatch reports before OCR, analysis, publication, or packaging.
Frequently asked questions
What are Research & Search agent skills?
Research agent skills teach AI agents to gather and synthesize information properly: literature reviews, competitive analysis, web research with citations, and structured summaries. Each SKILL.md encodes a method, not just a prompt, so results stay consistent across runs.
Which Research & Search skills are most installed?
Popular Research & Search skills on SkillMD right now include explore, new-vault, exa-search. Rankings shift as installs change; sort this page by "Most installs" for the live list.
Do Research & Search skills work with Claude Code and Cursor?
Yes. Every skill here ships as a SKILL.md file, an open format that works in Claude Code, Claude.ai, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, and 60+ other agents. Install one with npx skillmds@latest add <owner>/<name>, or copy the file into your agent's skills directory.