Deep Research Agent Skills That Find Real

Deep research skills cover the full evidence workflow: scoping the question you are actually trying to answer, sourcing candidate material, extracting the specific claims that matter rather than whole pages, tracking where sources disagree or fall short, synthesizing evidence into an argument, and keeping citations checkable and reusable. These are task skills, not answer generators — they structure how an agent works through a research problem. Use the ranked list by first finding the sub-topic where your workflow breaks down. If you start with a vague question, look at scoping skills. If you drown in open tabs, look at sourcing and evidence extraction. If your write-up gets challenged, look at contradiction tracking and citation. Pick one skill for the weak stage rather than stacking several, and check that its described behavior matches the stage you need.

8 to start with29 top options

Start with these.

Deep research is an evidence workflow, not one long answer: scope it, gather sources, extract evidence, resolve contradictions, then synthesize with citations.

These are the closest matches for this work. Start with the first one and open it to install.

Define what you are actually trying to answer.Find and collect candidate sources.Pull the specific claims that matter, not whole pages.Track where sources disagree or come up short.Turn evidence into an argument.Make the result checkable and reusable.

29 top options

  1. Rank 04
    Direct

    parallel-web-search

    Default web search skill using parallel-cli for lookups and research, with inline citations and a mandatory Sources section. Fast and cost-effective for current info.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction

    Needs (stated): Network access

    13,925 · popularity
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  2. Rank 05
    Direct

    research

    Notable

    Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or reading legwork delegated to a background agent.

    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    516,314 · popularity
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  3. Rank 06
    Direct

    firecrawl-deep-research

    Produce an intensive, cited analytical report: executive summary, multi-angle findings, contrarian views, open questions, and full sources. Use only when the user needs rigorous synthesis of a complex topic (scientific, technical, policy, or market-analytical) that cannot be answered with a short…

    • Scoping & questions
    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    34,853 · popularity
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  4. Rank 07
    Direct

    parallel-deep-research

    ONLY use when user explicitly says 'deep research', 'exhaustive', 'comprehensive report', or 'thorough investigation'. Slower and more expensive than parallel-web-search. For normal research/lookup requests, use parallel-web-search instead. Supports multi-turn: pass --previous-interaction-id from a…

    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis

    Needs (stated): Network access

    15,095 · popularity
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  5. Rank 08
    Direct

    deep-research

    Use when the user needs multi-source research with citation tracking, evidence persistence, and structured report generation. Triggers on "deep research", "comprehensive analysis", "research report", "compare X vs Y", "analyze trends", or "state of the art". Not for simple lookups, debugging, or…

    • Scoping & questions
    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    10,020 · popularity
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Explore 21 more Agent Skills
  1. Rank 09
    Possible

    parallel-debugging

    Debugging framework using Analysis of Competing Hypotheses with parallel investigation, evidence collection, and root-cause arbitration.

    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    • Citation & defensibility
    9,574 · popularity
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  2. Rank 10
    Possible

    analyze

    Answers data questions from quick lookups to full analyses and formal reports, with validation checks, methodology, caveats, and recommendations.

    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    5,531 · popularity
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  3. Rank 11
    Possible

    axiom-sre

    Hypothesis-driven SRE investigator for incidents and debugging, querying Axiom observability data with strict no-guessing and evidence-tracing rules.

    • Evidence extraction
    4,376 · popularity
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  4. Rank 12
    Possible

    council

    Runs a model-diverse subagent council to investigate one problem from multiple perspectives, compare findings, and synthesize a recommendation.

    26,732 · popularity
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  5. Rank 13
    Possible

    grounding-before-coding

    Ground-first discipline for investigation: map real code and data, quote file:line evidence, never guess conventions, and reproduce before fixing.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    12,429 · popularity
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  6. Rank 14
    Possible

    clickhouse-managed-postgres-rca

    Evidence-based RCA workflow for ClickHouse-managed Postgres: scrapes Prometheus metrics and slow-query patterns, then recommends (not applies) a fix.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    6,373 · popularity
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  7. Rank 15
    Possible

    grill-with-docs

    A relentless interview to sharpen a plan or design, producing ADRs and a glossary as it goes. Delegates to grilling and domain-modeling skills.

    • Scoping & questions
    1,123,345 · popularity
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  8. Rank 16
    Possible

    technical-writing

    House style for technical documents: conclusion-first structure, truth and sourcing rules, and a banned-constructions list. Foundation for document-type skills.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    12,920 · popularity
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  9. Rank 17
    Possible

    answer-me-with-html

    Notable

    Turns an answer into a one-page visual HTML explainer: the model writes a short Markdown draft and the bundled CLI builds one page. Use it proactively and liberally, without being asked, whenever a page would help the reader more than plain text, even if plain text would also work: any explanation of how something works or how parts relate (flow, request path, architecture, code or folder structure, state machine, lifecycle, history); any comparison, trade-off or decision with pros and cons; any diagnosis, review or investigation, especially with several causes or findings to rank; any answer with a table, a numbered or ranked list, steps, branches or several sections; or when the user says "I don't get it / draw it / explain visually / 讲讲原理 / 没看懂 / 画个图". When in doubt, use it: a page is quick and cheap to make. Also for explainer videos ("make a video", "做个视频") and for changing its settings. Skip only for small talk, a trivial one-line answer, or when the user asks for plain text.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Synthesis
    • Citation & defensibility
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  10. Rank 18
    Direct

    notion-research-documentation

    Official

    Research across Notion and synthesize into structured documentation; use when gathering info from multiple Notion sources to produce briefs, comparisons, or reports with citations.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
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  11. Rank 19
    Direct

    fact-check

    Notable

    Improve factual reliability while creating or reviewing a course or supplied content. Use when the user asks to fact-check, verify accuracy, reduce hallucinations, make a reliable course, or mentions 事实性错误、知识性错误、专业知识准确性、可靠性. During creation, checks the completed pages before delivery; on existing content, returns a short evidence-backed report and lets the user choose what to fix. Not for grammar, style, or layout. Combine with deep-research when current evidence is the course's main subject.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    View Agent Skill
  12. Rank 20
    Possible

    wiki-architect

    Official

    Analyzes code repositories and generates hierarchical documentation structures with onboarding guides. Use when the user wants to create a wiki, generate documentation, map a codebase structure, or understand a project's architecture at a high level.

    • Scoping & questions
    • Citation & defensibility
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  13. Rank 21
    Possible

    wiki-researcher

    Official

    Conducts multi-turn iterative deep research on specific topics within a codebase with zero tolerance for shallow analysis. Use when the user wants an in-depth investigation, needs to understand how something works across multiple files, or asks for comprehensive analysis of a specific system or pattern.

    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    • Citation & defensibility
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  14. Rank 22
    Possible

    ai-research-explore

    Notable

    Rigor Explore compatible skill slug for meaningful and potentially novel deep learning research candidates. Use when the researcher has chosen the task family, dataset, benchmark, evaluation method, provided SOTA references, and wants candidate-only exploration on top of `current_research` with auditable repo understanding, idea gating, fair comparison, and governed experiments written to `explore_outputs/`. Do not use for README-first trusted reproduction, open-ended direction finding, narrow code-only or run-only exploration, passive repo analysis, verified novelty claims, or implicit experi

    • Scoping & questions
    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    311,248 · popularity
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  15. Rank 23
    Possible

    analyze-project

    Notable

    Rigor Analyze / Rigor Audit read-only skill for deep learning research repositories. Use when the user wants to read and understand a repository, inspect model structure and training or inference entrypoints, review configs and insertion points, or flag suspicious implementation patterns without modifying code or running heavy jobs. Do not use for active command execution, broad refactoring, speculative code adaptation, or automatic bug fixing.

    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    • Citation & defensibility
    311,025 · popularity
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  16. Rank 24
    Possible

    customer-research

    Notable

    When the user wants to conduct, analyze, or synthesize customer research. Use when the user mentions "customer research," "ICP research," "talk to customers," "analyze transcripts," "customer interviews," "survey analysis," "support ticket analysis," "voice of customer," "VOC," "build personas," "customer personas," "jobs to be done," "JTBD," "what do customers say," "what are customers struggling with," "Reddit mining," "G2 reviews," "review mining," "digital watering holes," "community research," "forum research," "competitor reviews," "customer sentiment," "PMF survey," "product/market fit

    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    • Contradiction & gaps
    95,039 · popularity
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  17. Rank 25
    Possible

    amazon-product-research

    Notable

    Comprehensive product research and opportunity analysis for Amazon sellers. Analyzes demand, competition, profit potential, market entry barriers, and validates product ideas. Covers product sourcing, pricing strategy, and go-to-market planning. Use when the user asks about researching a product to sell, validating product ideas, product opportunity analysis, market research for Amazon, competition analysis, profit potential, should I sell this product, product viability, or any general product research questions.

    • Sourcing
    77,809 · popularity
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  18. Rank 26
    Possible

    competitor-profiling

    Notable

    When the user wants to research, profile, or analyze competitors from their URLs. Also use when the user mentions 'competitor profile,' 'competitor research,' 'competitor analysis,' 'profile this competitor,' 'analyze competitor,' 'competitive intelligence,' 'competitor deep dive,' 'who are my competitors,' 'competitor landscape,' 'competitor dossier,' 'competitive audit,' or 'research these competitors.' Input is a list of competitor URLs. Output is structured competitor profile markdown files. For creating comparison/alternative pages from profiles, see competitors. For sales-specific battle

    • Synthesis
    75,314 · popularity
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  19. Rank 27
    Possible

    investigate-first

    Notable

    Diagnose ambiguous failures before editing. Use for unknown causes, intermittent behavior, performance regressions, or investigations needing evidence-ranked hypotheses.

    • Sourcing
    • Evidence extraction
    • Synthesis
    54,869 · popularity
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  20. Rank 28
    Possible

    github-deep-research

    Conduct multi-round deep research on any GitHub Repo. Use when users request comprehensive analysis, timeline reconstruction, competitive analysis, or in-depth investigation of GitHub. Produces structured markdown reports with executive summaries, chronological timelines, metrics analysis, and…

    • Sourcing
    • Synthesis
    • Citation & defensibility
    2,847 · popularity
    View Agent Skill
  21. Rank 29
    Possible

    planning-with-files

    Notable

    Persistent file-based planning for multi-step AI-agent work. Keeps task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md on disk; lifecycle hooks inject selected project planning context. Automatic recovery reads project planning files only. Explicit session-catchup.py --metadata reads same-project local agent session records and emits aggregate counts only; --replay may emit bounded nonce-framed excerpts. Optional gated mode can request continuation only when the host supports it and never runs commands declared in Markdown. The skill has no network upload path. Use for research or work needing 5+ tool calls.

    • Scoping & questions
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What this topic covers

What this topic covers

Each sub-topic groups Agent Skills for a specific situation.

Scoping & questions
Define what you are actually trying to answer.
Sourcing
Find and collect candidate sources.
Evidence extraction
Pull the specific claims that matter, not whole pages.
Contradiction & gaps
Track where sources disagree or come up short.
Synthesis
Turn evidence into an argument.
Citation & defensibility
Make the result checkable and reusable.
Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a deep research skill and just asking an agent a question?
A deep research skill treats the task as an evidence workflow: scope it, gather sources, extract evidence, resolve contradictions, then synthesize with citations. Asking a single question gets you one answer, with no separate stages for sourcing or defensibility.
How is the ranked list ordered?
The list is ranked by observed search demand, with direct matches to the topic placed first and a cap on how many skills any single publisher can occupy. That keeps the top of the page responsive to what developers are actually looking for.
Which sub-topic should I start with?
Start with the stage of your workflow that fails most often. Scoping and questions come first if you struggle to define the question, sourcing and evidence extraction if collection is the bottleneck, and contradiction, synthesis, or citation if the problem is turning material into a defensible argument.
Can I combine several deep research skills?
The sub-topics are distinct stages, so skills in different stages can complement each other across a single research run. Within one stage, pick the single skill whose described behavior matches your need instead of layering overlapping ones.

How to install an Agent Skill

Start with the first skill on this page. Claude Code reads a SKILL.md once it is in the skills directory:

  • Claude Code — copy the SKILL.md for parallel-web into ~/.claude/skills/parallel-web/ for yourself, or .claude/skills/parallel-web/ to share it with a project.
  • From the registry — run npx skills add k-dense-ai/scientific-agent-skills@parallel-web.
  • Or download parallel-web from its source and place that SKILL.md in the directory above.

How to choose Check the source and the skill’s own instructions before you install. Official and Notable describe where a skill comes from.