Research Tools

Available Tools

web-search

• Tool IDs:

  webSearch

  ,

  webSearchMulti

• Secrets:

  serper.apiKey

  (or

  brave.apiKey

  )
• Use when: Quick factual lookups, recent events, general knowledge queries
• Capabilities: Google/Brave search results with snippets, images, news, related searches
• Strategy: Start here for most queries. If results are thin, escalate to deep-research.

deep-research

• Tool IDs:

  researchInvestigate

  ,

  researchAcademic

  ,

  researchScrape

  ,

  researchAggregate

  ,

  researchTrending

• Secrets:

  serper.apiKey

  (required),

  brave.apiKey

  ,

  serpapi.apiKey

  (optional)
• Use when: Multi-source investigation needed, academic questions, claim verification, trend analysis
• Capabilities:

  • researchInvestigate

    — cross-references multiple sources, verifies claims, builds evidence chains

  • researchAcademic

    — searches arXiv, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar for papers

  • researchScrape

    — extracts content from specific URLs (YouTube transcripts, Wikipedia, blogs)

  • researchAggregate

    — unified search across Serper, Brave, and SerpAPI simultaneously

  • researchTrending

    — discovers trends across Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and HackerNews

content-extraction

• Tool IDs:

  extractContent

  ,

  extractPdf

  ,

  extractStructured

• Use when: Need to read full text from a specific URL, PDF, or structured data source
• Capabilities: Pulls clean text from web pages, parses PDFs, extracts structured data (tables, JSON-LD)
• Strategy: Use after finding a promising URL from search to get the full content.

hacker-news

• Tool ID:

  hacker_news

• Secrets: None required
• Use when: Tech news, startup trends, developer community sentiment, Show HN projects
• Capabilities: Fetch stories by category (top, new, best, ask, show, job), search by keyword, filter by score/date
• Strategy: Great for gauging developer community reaction to technologies or tools.

stealth-browser

• Tool IDs:

  stealthBrowse

  ,

  stealthScreenshot

  ,

  stealthExtract

• Secrets: None (runs headless Chromium)
• Use when: Sites block scrapers, need JavaScript rendering, require screenshots, CAPTCHAs
• Capabilities: Full browser automation with stealth fingerprinting, anti-detection headers, cookie handling
• Strategy: Last resort when simpler extraction fails. Higher latency and resource usage.

news-search

• Tool ID:

  newsSearch

• Secrets:

  newsapi.apiKey

  or

  serper.apiKey

• Use when: Current events, breaking news, news from specific publications
• Capabilities: Search news articles by keyword, filter by date range, source, language, country
• Strategy: More focused than web-search for news-specific queries. Better date filtering.

Research Strategy

Quick Lookup (< 30 seconds)

1. Use

   webSearch

   with a focused query
2. If answer is in the snippets, return immediately
3. If a specific URL looks promising, use

   extractContent

   to read the full page

Standard Research (1-3 minutes)

1. Start with

   webSearch

   to map the landscape
2. Use

   newsSearch

   for recent developments
3. Extract full content from the 2-3 most relevant URLs
4. Cross-reference facts from multiple sources
5. Synthesize findings with citations

Deep Investigation (3-10 minutes)

1. Use

   researchInvestigate

   for multi-source cross-referencing
2. If academic: add

   researchAcademic

   for papers and citations
3. Use

   researchAggregate

   to catch sources missed by a single engine
4. Check

   researchTrending

   for community sentiment
5. Use

   hacker_news

   for developer community perspective
6. Extract full text from key sources with

   extractContent

7. Fall back to

   stealthBrowse

   for paywall or bot-blocked content
8. Compile a structured report with evidence chains

Trend Monitoring

1. researchTrending

   for cross-platform trend detection

2. hacker_news

   for tech-specific trends

3. newsSearch

   with date filters for news cycle tracking

4. webSearch

   for baseline comparison

Best Practices

• Always cite sources — include URLs for claims
• Cross-reference — verify important facts from 2+ independent sources
• Check recency — web search results may be stale; filter by date when currency matters
• Respect rate limits — don't fire all tools in parallel; sequence appropriately
• Prefer lighter tools first — web-search before deep-research, extractContent before stealthBrowse
• Academic rigor — for scientific claims, always check

  researchAcademic

  for peer-reviewed sources