auto-researcher

What This Skill Does

The auto-researcher is an advanced AI agent skill designed for OpenClaw that automates the entire information gathering and synthesis lifecycle. It moves beyond simple search results by executing a structured 5-stage research process: Define, Search, Evaluate, Synthesize, and Verify. By leveraging the CRAAP (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose) framework, this agent ensures that every piece of information included in your final report meets a professional standard of quality. It is designed to minimize 'hallucinations' by enforcing cross-validation and maintaining a clear record of citation sources, making it an essential tool for analysts, students, and content creators.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your OpenClaw environment, execute the following command in your terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/bandwe/auto-researcher Ensure you have the latest version of OpenClaw CLI installed to handle the repository dependencies correctly.

Use Cases

• Market Analysis: Automatically research industry trends or competitive landscapes and generate a consolidated report with cited data.
• Academic Inquiry: Perform deep dives into specific research topics while strictly adhering to APA citation styles.
• Content Creation: Gather facts, verify claims, and build knowledge graphs for long-form articles or technical documentation.
• Continuous Monitoring: Track specific topics or news cycles (like software updates or policy changes) and receive summaries whenever new information meets your predefined credibility threshold.

Example Prompts

1. "Perform a deep dive into the current state of decentralized AI infrastructure, focusing on 2024-2025 developments, and output a summary report with APA citations."
2. "Research the effectiveness of prompt engineering versus fine-tuning for specific coding tasks. Cross-reference your findings to identify any conflicting professional opinions."
3. "Start a continuous monitor for any official documentation updates regarding the OpenClaw API and alert me when significant changes occur."

Tips & Limitations

• Depth Settings: Adjust the research_depth in your configuration file. Use 'basic' for quick fact-checking and 'deep' for comprehensive reports.
• CRAAP Thresholds: Always set your min_craap_score to 'B' for professional work to ensure the agent ignores low-quality, speculative, or biased sources.
• Query Optimization: While the agent uses search optimization tactics (like site-specific searches and boolean operators), providing specific keywords or excluding terms (using -) significantly improves result relevancy.
• Limitations: The agent depends on the availability and accessibility of indexable web content. It may face challenges with password-protected databases or real-time private intranet data.