External Research

Overview

Guides systematic searching of external resources — official documentation, open-source repositories, and industry best practices. Ensures findings are reliable, current, and properly cited.

Usage

Use this skill when you need to:

• Look up AWS service documentation, limits, or pricing
• Research open-source library APIs, patterns, or known issues
• Find industry best practices or design patterns
• Evaluate third-party tools or frameworks

Do NOT use for private or authenticated resources that require credentialed access.

Tools

Use WebFetch to retrieve content from a known URL. When no URL is known, use WebSearch to find relevant public and internal sources, then WebFetch the pages identified.

Search Strategy

1. Start broad, then narrow — begin with official docs, then drill into specifics
2. Cross-reference multiple sources — never rely on a single blog post or answer
3. Prefer official docs over community content — blogs and forums may be outdated or wrong
4. Check version relevance — ensure docs match the version you're actually using
5. Note recency — flag if content is older than 12 months for fast-moving technologies

Source Reliability

Ranked from most to least reliable:

Always prefer Tier 1–2 sources. Use Tier 3–4 only to supplement or when higher-tier sources lack coverage.

Output Format

1. Cite URLs — include the full URL for every finding
2. Summarize key findings — extract actionable insights, not full page content
3. Note version and date — include the library/service version and when the source was published
4. Flag conflicts — if sources disagree, present both sides with reliability tiers
5. State applicability — note any caveats about environment, version, or scale

Example:

### Finding: S3 Event Notifications support SQS FIFO queues (since Nov 2023)
- **Source:** https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/notification-how-to-event-types-and-destinations.html
- **Version:** Current (verified May 2025)
- **Confidence:** High (official AWS docs)

Quality Gate

CRITICAL:

• Presenting information without citing the source URL
• Using Tier 4 sources as sole evidence for architectural decisions

IMPORTANT:

• Not checking version relevance for library/framework guidance
• Not cross-referencing when sources conflict

SUGGESTION:

• Could include additional alternative approaches from different sources
• Could note when a technology is changing rapidly and findings may become stale

Optional: Official Slack MCP

Optional: the researcher can also search Slack via the official Slack MCP — see docs/guides/slack-integration.md for setup.