Deep Research Skill

A portable Agent Skill that decides when a user needs thorough web research and routes retrieval through the standard You.com MCP server. Use it for open-ended briefings, deep dives, and cited synthesis across multiple sources.

What You’ll Build

A SKILL.md package that teaches an agent when a request needs multi-source research instead of a single lookup. The skill sends the user’s question and relevant thread context to the standard You.com MCP server’s you-research tool and preserves inline citations in the final answer.

When It Fires

The task needs synthesis across several sources, not one fact. Trigger signals: “research”, “briefing”, “deep dive”, “literature on”, open-ended “what’s known about”. For single-fact lookups, a plain search is the better fit.

Prerequisites

Install the Skill

1. Connect your agent harness to the You.com MCP server — see the MCP server guide.
2. Save the skill below as SKILL.md in your harness’s skills directory (or download it).
3. The agent loads the skill and invokes you-research whenever the trigger fires.

The Skill

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---
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name: deep-research
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description: Use when the user needs a thorough, multi-source answer with citations - "research X", "give me a briefing on Y", "what's the state of Z". Not for single-fact lookups; use a plain search for those.
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---
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# Deep research (You.com)
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## When this fires
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The task needs synthesis across several sources, not one fact. Signals:
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"research", "briefing", "deep dive", "literature on", open-ended "what's
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known about".
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## How to retrieve
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1. Call the standard You.com MCP server's `you-research` tool.
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2. Pass the user's question plus any relevant context already in the thread.
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3. Return the synthesized answer with inline citations preserved. Never strip
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   sources.

Example Output

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# Deep research: agentic browser automation
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## Summary
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Agentic browser automation is moving from brittle scripts toward goal-directed
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agents that can inspect pages, use tools, recover from DOM changes, and cite
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the sources behind their conclusions.
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Sources:
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[1] Vendor docs - browser automation architecture
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[2] Recent coverage - enterprise adoption patterns

Next Steps