$npx -y skills add firecrawl/firecrawl-workflows --skill firecrawl-research-papersFind and synthesize research papers, whitepapers, PDFs, technical reports, and academic sources with Firecrawl Research, using semantic paper search, related-paper expansion, and in-body verification. Use when the user wants a literature review, paper summary, research landscape,
| 1 | # Firecrawl Research Papers |
| 2 | |
| 3 | Use this to create a sourced literature review. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | ## Onboarding Interview |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Infer the topic, source constraints, target count, and output format from context. If the topic is clear, proceed immediately. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Ask at most 1-3 concise questions only if blocked, such as the topic, target paper count, or required venue/date/method constraints. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | ## Firecrawl Collection Plan |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Use Firecrawl Research through the CLI, MCP, or equivalent Firecrawl tool |
| 14 | surface as the primary path for paper discovery and verification. Fall back to |
| 15 | general Firecrawl search and scrape for whitepapers, technical reports, |
| 16 | research blogs, leaderboards, or facts outside the paper corpus. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Core tools: |
| 19 | |
| 20 | - MCP: `firecrawl_research_search_papers(query, k?)` |
| 21 | CLI: `firecrawl research search-papers <query> [--k <number>]` |
| 22 | Semantic search over paper abstracts. Start here for most paper-finding |
| 23 | queries, and retry with alternate framing when results are thin or too |
| 24 | narrow. |
| 25 | - MCP: `firecrawl_research_related_papers(seed_ids, intent, mode?, k?)` |
| 26 | CLI: `firecrawl research related-papers <seedIds...> --intent <intent> [--mode <similar|citers|references>] [--k <number>]` |
| 27 | Expand from strong seed papers into similar work, citing papers, or |
| 28 | references. Use this to find the relevant paper family, not just the first |
| 29 | matching result. |
| 30 | - MCP: `firecrawl_research_inspect_paper(id)` |
| 31 | CLI: `firecrawl research inspect-paper <id>` |
| 32 | Fetch canonical metadata for a candidate paper: title, abstract, authors, |
| 33 | categories, source ids, and dates. |
| 34 | - MCP: `firecrawl_research_read_paper(id, question)` |
| 35 | CLI: `firecrawl research read-paper <id> --question <question>` |
| 36 | Verify a specific claim or constraint inside one paper, such as method, |
| 37 | reported score, benchmark, affiliation, comparison, or limitation. |
| 38 | - MCP: `firecrawl_search(query)` / `firecrawl_scrape(url)` |
| 39 | CLI: `firecrawl search <query>` / `firecrawl scrape <url>` |
| 40 | Use for web-only context: benchmark leaderboards, rankings, reports, |
| 41 | whitepapers, research blogs, and source pages outside the paper index. |
| 42 | |
| 43 | Match the approach to the query: |
| 44 | |
| 45 | - Single named paper: run one paper search, then inspect or read the paper if |
| 46 | metadata or body verification is needed. |
| 47 | - Paper by description, method, or topic family: search for strong anchors, |
| 48 | then expand with related papers and keep close neighbors. |
| 49 | - Enumeration queries, such as papers that do a task or benchmark a method: |
| 50 | search multiple framings, expand several strong anchors, and re-seed from |
| 51 | newly found relevant papers. |
| 52 | - Papers that use or exhibit a property: start from the defining paper or |
| 53 | strongest anchor, expand via similar, citers, or references, and use |
| 54 | read-paper to verify the property. |
| 55 | - Superlatives and leaderboards: use general web search or scrape to find the |
| 56 | ranking, then map top entries back to papers with paper search. |
| 57 | - Author, organization, venue, date, or methodology constraints: verify with |
| 58 | inspect-paper metadata or read-paper before keeping a candidate. |
| 59 | |
| 60 | Target source types: |
| 61 | |
| 62 | - academic papers from arXiv, university sites, ACM/IEEE pages where accessible |
| 63 | - industry reports and whitepapers |
| 64 | - company research blogs |
| 65 | - technical articles and conference summaries |
| 66 | |
| 67 | Principles: |
| 68 | |
| 69 | - When in doubt, include the relevant paper family rather than only the single |
| 70 | best result. |
| 71 | - Use related-paper expansion to avoid stopping at one strong hit. |
| 72 | - Use read-paper to verify load-bearing constraints, not to summarize every |
| 73 | candidate. |
| 74 | - Drop only clearly off-topic papers. |
| 75 | |
| 76 | ## Parallel Work |
| 77 | |
| 78 | If appropriate, use sub-agents or equivalent parallel task runners: |
| 79 | |
| 80 | - Academic Papers researcher |
| 81 | - Industry Reports researcher |
| 82 | - Technical Articles researcher |
| 83 | - Synthesis and citation reviewer |
| 84 | |
| 85 | ## Final Deliverable |
| 86 | |
| 87 | ```markdown |
| 88 | # Literature Review: [Topic] |
| 89 | |
| 90 | ## Abstract |
| 91 | [2-3 paragraph summary] |
| 92 | |
| 93 | ## Key Papers |
| 94 | [Title, authors, source URL, key findings, methodology, relevance] |
| 95 | |
| 96 | ## Themes And Consensus |
| 97 | [What sources agree on] |
| 98 | |
| 99 | ## Open Questions And Debates |
| 100 | [Disagreements and unresolved questions] |
| 101 | |
| 102 | ## Emerging Trends |
| 103 | [Recent developments] |
| 104 | |
| 105 | ## Sources |
| 106 | [Organized by paper/report/article] |
| 107 | |
| 108 | ## Rerun Inputs |
| 109 | workflow: firecrawl-research-papers |
| 110 | topic: [topic] |
| 111 | target_count: [number] |
| 112 | output: [markdown/brief] |
| 113 | ``` |
| 114 | |
| 115 | ## Quality Bar |
| 116 | |
| 117 | - Every |