Multi-Source Web Researcher

Purpose

This skill orchestrates the systematic collection, verification, and consolidation of information from multiple digital sources to answer research questions, particularly those involving academic or professional data. It is designed to handle tasks where information is distributed across web search results, academic paper repositories (arXiv), PDF documents, and professional profile platforms (Google Scholar, institutional websites).

Core Workflow

1. Initial Setup & Discovery

• Locate Target Files: First, identify any local files (like Excel workbooks) that define the research scope or require population. Use terminal commands to find relevant files in the workspace.
• Understand Data Structure: Read the metadata and contents of discovered files to understand what information needs to be gathered and the required format.

2. Parallel Information Gathering

• Concurrent Searches: For efficiency, launch multiple web searches in parallel to gather initial leads on each research item (e.g., paper titles, author names).
• Source Diversification: Use a combination of:
  • local-web_search: For general web results, author profiles, and institutional pages.
  • arxiv_local-search_papers: For finding specific academic papers and their metadata on arXiv.
  • pdf-tools-read_pdf_pages: To extract precise information (like author affiliations) directly from source PDFs when URLs are known.