# Research Agent Setup

> Configure the research agent template: niche, sources, scoring, delivery, approval policy, and recurring schedules.

- Skill: `grandamenium/research-agent-setup` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add grandamenium/research-agent-setup`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/grandamenium/research-agent-setup/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: grandamenium (https://skillmd.com/u/grandamenium)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/grandamenium/research-agent-setup

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# Research Agent Setup

Interactive onboarding. Prompts the user for all configuration values and writes `config.json`.

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## When to Use

On first boot, or when the user asks to configure or reconfigure the research agent.

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## Process

Ask the user each question in order. Accept their answer before moving to the next. Write the completed config at the end.

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## Questions

1. **Agent name** -- What should this agent call itself? (default: Research Agent)
2. **Timezone** -- Your local timezone (e.g. America/New_York, Europe/London, Asia/Tokyo)
3. **Daily brief time** -- What local time should the daily research brief run? (default: 9am). The template's full schedule -- daily brief, evening topic briefing, weekly trends review, and weekly quality review -- is always installed; this only sets the daily brief time.
4. **Target audience** -- Who reads these briefs? (e.g. "technical founders building with AI", "content creators in the finance niche")
5. **Niche / product** -- What community, product, or topic is this agent serving? (used to tune business_fit scoring)
6. **Source categories** -- Which source types to enable? (GitHub, Reddit, YouTube, Hacker News, arXiv, RSS, custom URLs, Apify)
7. **GitHub sources** -- Topics to track (e.g. "ai-agents, llm-ops"), specific repos to monitor, or "none"
8. **Reddit communities** -- Subreddits to monitor (e.g. "LocalLLaMA, MachineLearning") or "none"
9. **YouTube channels** -- Channel handles or IDs to track via RSS or "none"
10. **RSS feeds** -- Any RSS/Atom feed URLs, comma-separated, or "none"
11. **Hacker News** -- Monitor HN top stories? (yes/no)
12. **arXiv queries** -- Search terms for arXiv (e.g. "agent memory, multi-agent systems") or "none"
13. **Custom URLs** -- Any specific URLs to fetch each run (changelogs, blog pages) or "none"
14. **Apify actors** -- Any Apify actor IDs to run (requires APIFY_TOKEN in .env) or "none"
15. **Scoring rubric** -- Use default rubric weights or customize? If customize: ask weight (1-10) for each dimension.
16. **Top N signals per run** -- How many signals to select and brief per run? (default: 8)
17. **Min score threshold** -- Minimum score to include a signal (default: 5.0)
18. **Signal categories** -- What categories to classify signals into? (e.g. "competitive intel, content opportunity, technical research, community signal")
19. **Content voice** -- Describe the content voice/style for brief writing (e.g. "direct, practitioner, no hype")
20. **Delivery destination** -- Where to send run summaries? (telegram / slack / local_markdown / none)
21. **Delivery credentials** -- If Telegram: use the agent's existing cortextOS Telegram channel. If Slack: webhook URL goes in `.env`, not config.
22. **Require approval before sending externally?** -- (yes/no, default yes)
23. **Dedup window** -- How many days back to deduplicate? (default: 7)
24. **Retain raw dumps?** -- Keep raw source dumps in research/output/? (yes/no, default yes)
25. **Privacy exclusions** -- Any topics, keywords, or sources to never include in output? (e.g. "competitor names, internal projects")

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## Output

Write or update:

- `IDENTITY.md`
- `USER.md`
- `TOOLS.md`
- `research/sources.json`
- `research/scoring-rubric.json`
- `config.json`

**Crons -- install ALL of the template's shipped crons** (do not reduce the set). The
template ships 5 crons in `config.json`; preserve every one, each with its full
skill-chain prompt and `update-cron-fire` call:

- `heartbeat` (`4h`)
- `daily-research-brief` (`0 9 * * *` -- adjust only the hour to the user's chosen brief time from Q3)
- `topic-briefing` (`0 18 * * *`)
- `weekly-trends-review` (`0 9 * * 1`)
- `research-quality-review` (`0 12 * * 5`)

Keep the shipped prompts verbatim. Only the `daily-research-brief` schedule changes to
match the user's preference -- do NOT drop the other crons or replace them with terse
run-only entries.

Write `.env` stub reminding user to add their API keys (if .env does not already exist).
Use `research.delivery.destination` and `research.delivery.requires_approval` for
delivery settings.

Never write secrets into committed files. Confirm: "Setup complete. Add your API keys to .env or org secrets. Your first run will fire at [next scheduled time]."