Deep Research Generic

Deep Research — Generic

File-backed, multi-pass research workflow. Each useful page is fetched, cleaned, and saved to an intermediate file. Linked pages are recursively followed. All intermediate files are synthesized step-by-step into a single comprehensive research document.

Core principle: Use the file system as extended memory. Never rely on context alone — save everything worth keeping, then synthesize from files.

Methodology

Step 1 — Scope & Plan

Before any search:

1. Define the exact research question or thesis
2. Break into 3–7 sub-questions (dimensions), each with a priority (high/medium/low)
3. Create the working directory:

.research/{topic-slug}/
├── _plan.md            # Sub-questions, priorities, URL queue, gap tracker
├── pages/              # One .md file per fetched page
└── output.md           # Final synthesized research document

4. Write _plan.md with sub-questions and an empty URL queue section

Ask at most two clarifying questions. If the request is clear, proceed immediately.

Step 2 — Initial Search Sweep

For each sub-question, run parallel searches to discover URLs:

• web_search (primary): one query per sub-question; multi-provider, synthesized results with citations
• Jina Search (complementary): fetch_content on https://s.jina.ai/{search-query}
• Tavily (if MCP-available): search_depth: basic, max_results: 5–10

From results:

• Record every promising URL in _plan.md under the URL queue
• Note: source, relevance score, which sub-question it serves
• Filter: only queue URLs with relevance score > 0.5 (or clearly relevant titles)

Step 3 — Deep Fetch (page by page)

Process each queued URL individually:

3a. Fetch using the tool hierarchy (stop at first success):

Jina proxy: fetch_content on https://r.jina.ai/{full-url-with-scheme} Converts any page to clean markdown. Strips ads, nav, popups. Falls back to Gemini for bot-blocked pages.

Escalation: Jina proxy empty → fetch_content direct → Tavily extract → Playwright.

3b. Evaluate: Is the content relevant and citable? If not, mark URL as skipped in _plan.md and move on.

3c. Save to intermediate file pages/{NNN}_{slug}.md:

# {Page Title}

- **Source**: {URL}
- **Fetched**: {date}
- **Serves**: {sub-question name}
- **Relevance**: high/medium/low

## Content

{Cleaned content: facts, data, quotes, code, citations.
Remove navigation, ads, boilerplate. Summarize verbose sections
but preserve all critical detail and data points.}

## Outbound Links

- {URL1} — {why it might be useful}
- {URL2} — {why it might be useful}

3d. Extract links: Identify all outbound links that could deepen the research. Add relevant new URLs to the queue in _plan.md.

Step 4 — Recursive Link Discovery

Repeat Step 3 for newly queued links. Stop when:

• No new relevant links found
• Maximum depth reached (default: 3 levels from initial results)
• Diminishing returns — new pages repeat known information

Update _plan.md queue: mark each URL as fetched, skipped, or queued.

Step 5 — Gap Analysis

After all fetch rounds:

1. Review each sub-question against the intermediate files
2. List which files provide evidence for each sub-question
3. Identify gaps: sub-questions with no or weak coverage
4. For critical gaps → run targeted searches (back to Step 2) for those gaps only
5. Update _plan.md with gap analysis

Step 6 — Step-by-Step Synthesis

Build output.md incrementally from intermediate files:

1. Process one dimension at a time — do not load all files at once
2. For each dimension: a. Read the relevant intermediate files for that dimension b. Write the analysis section into output.md with inline citations [N] c. Move to the next dimension
3. After all dimensions: a. Write the executive summary (from the completed analysis) b. Write consensus and conflicts sections c. Compile the numbered sources list d. List gaps and follow-up questions

Key: Each section reads only its relevant files. The research depth is limited only by the data found, not by context window size.

Step 7 — Final Output

Structure of output.md:

## Executive Summary
[2–3 sentences. Key conclusions + overall confidence.]

## Key Findings
- **{Finding}**: {1 sentence} — Confidence: High/Medium/Low [N]

## Detailed Analysis

### {Dimension 1}
{Analysis with inline citations [1][2].}

### {Dimension 2}
...

## Consensus
[What sources agree on.]

## Conflicts and Uncertainty
[Where sources disagree or data is missing.]

## Sources
[1] Author/Org, "Title", URL — date — Tier N
[2] ...

## Gaps and Follow-up Questions
[What this research does NOT answer.]

Present output.md to the user. Intermediate files remain available for follow-up.

Fetch Tool Details

fetch_content (primary — always available)

Jina proxy:  fetch_content(url="https://r.jina.ai/{target-url-with-scheme}")
Direct:      fetch_content(url="{target-url}")

Handles URLs, GitHub repos, PDFs (text extraction), and YouTube transcripts. Jina proxy strips boilerplate, returns clean markdown. Direct mode for APIs, raw text, and documents. Gemini fallback activates automatically for bot-blocked pages.

web_search (primary search — always available)

Multi-provider search (OpenAI, Brave, Perplexity, Exa, Tavily, Gemini). Returns synthesized answer with source citations.

web_search(queries=["sub-question 1", "sub-question 2"])  # parallel
web_search(query="...", recencyFilter="month")             # time-bounded

Use numResults=10 for broad sweeps. Post-filter URLs for relevance before deep-fetching.

Tavily (when MCP available)

Query rules: max 400 chars, one topic per query, include_domains instead of site:, score > 0.5 filter. Use search_depth: advanced + chunks_per_source: 3 for precise fact retrieval.

Playwright (fallback for JS-heavy pages)

Use when fetch_content and Tavily return empty or incomplete content:

• JavaScript-rendered SPAs and dynamic tables
• Content requiring browser-level JS execution

Source Credibility Tiers

Quality Rules

• Every factual claim needs a citation with source URL
• Never fabricate a source — if unavailable, state "not found"
• Distinguish "no evidence" from "evidence of absence"
• Flag information older than 2 years as potentially outdated
• Respect robots.txt on public-domain research; record the fetch method used per page