Perplexity Research

Purpose: Get unstuck by dispatching research queries to Perplexity AI Trigger: Automatic (2+ failures, uncertainty) OR manual invocation Cost: Perplexity API calls are paid — use judiciously

When to Invoke (Automatic Triggers)

You MUST invoke this skill when ANY of these conditions are met:

Personal preference matters? → Ask the user instead Broader/extrinsic research needed? → Invoke this skill

Invocation Protocol

User can force invocation with: "Use Perplexity to research X", "Get unstuck on X", "Research X via Perplexity".

Step 0: Try Free Tools First (MANDATORY)

<EXTREMELY_IMPORTANT> Try web-search + web-fetch first. Only escalate if ≥50% worse than expected. State: "web-search returned [X]. Insufficient because [reason]. Escalating." Never use Perplexity for: simple lookups, URL checks, basic fact-checking, reading docs. </EXTREMELY_IMPORTANT>

Step 1: Announce + Prompt

Announce: research topic, trigger, free tools tried, why escalating. Prompt: context + specific question + constraints + what you've tried + web-search results.

Step 2: Dispatch

Step 3: Apply + Evaluate

Report findings → apply (run command/implement fix/test) → evaluate BEFORE recording stats.

Step 6: Evaluate Helpfulness (CRITICAL)

After attempting to apply the Perplexity response, explicitly evaluate:

📊 **Perplexity Evaluation**:
- Applied: [what you tried]
- Outcome: [SUCCESS | PARTIAL | FAILURE]
- Reason: [why it helped or didn't help]

Evaluation criteria:

Step 7: Record Outcome (After Evaluation)

ONLY after Step 6, log the research outcome for future reference:

• Trigger: What caused the research (failed_attempts, uncertainty, etc.)
• Tool used: ask, search, or reason
• Query summary: Brief description
• Outcome: SUCCESS, PARTIAL, or FAILURE
• Reason: Why it helped or didn't

Record outcomes in conversation context or TODO notes — this helps calibrate when Perplexity is worth the cost.

The evaluation loop:

1. Receive Perplexity response → Report (Step 4)
2. Apply the information → Act (Step 5)
3. Evaluate outcome → Judge (Step 6)
4. Record outcome → Track (Step 7)

Cost Efficiency

⚠️ Perplexity API calls cost real money. Always try free tools first (Step 0). See references/cost-reference.md for high/low-value use cases, efficiency tactics, and the full cost-conscious decision framework.

Key Principles

1. FREE FIRST - Always try web-search and web-fetch before Perplexity
2. ALWAYS announce - User must know when Perplexity is being consulted
3. Justify escalation - State what web-search found and why it's insufficient
4. Track everything - Stats enable tuning and improvement
5. Rich prompts - Better prompts = better results
6. Low threshold - 2 failures is enough; don't struggle unnecessarily
7. Cost awareness - Perplexity costs real money; use only when free tools fail

"I'm Stuck" Escalation Path

Default order: think-twice (free, reasoning) → perplexity-research (paid, knowledge). See references/escalation.md for the full decision tree.

References

• references/cost-reference.md — High/low-value use cases, efficiency tactics, cost-conscious decision framework
• references/escalation.md — "I'm stuck" decision tree for think-twice vs perplexity-research

Companion Skills

• expert-interviewer: For structured domain expert interviews
• incorporating-research: Merging Perplexity findings into docs
• think-twice: When stuck — Perplexity is an escalation target