
Knowledge Research Matrix
FreeA multi-tool hub for research and documentation.
Free · Opens the source repo
What Knowledge Research Matrix does
The Knowledge Research Matrix skill provides a comprehensive environment for managing research tasks, note-taking, document authoring, and publishing. It integrates various capabilities through a matrix of providers, allowing users to leverage command-line interfaces (CLIs), Python libraries, and cloud APIs based on their specific needs. This skill is particularly useful for researchers, academics, and professionals who require a flexible and powerful toolset to streamline their workflows.
Users can install and configure the skill through simple CLI commands, enabling them to access a wide range of functionalities. The skill supports capabilities such as web and literature search, reference management, note-taking, outlining, synthesis of documents, and document authoring. Each capability is backed by a selection of providers, giving users the freedom to choose the best options based on their requirements, including cost, quality, and availability.
The skill is designed to facilitate efficient research processes by providing tools for searching literature, retrieving article texts, managing citations, and synthesizing information from multiple documents. The matrix structure allows for easy navigation and selection of providers, ensuring that users can find the right tools for their specific tasks. Additionally, the skill's offline capabilities for certain providers make it suitable for use in various environments, whether connected to the internet or not.
Overall, the Knowledge Research Matrix skill is an essential tool for anyone involved in research or documentation, offering a robust set of features that can adapt to a variety of workflows and requirements.
When to use it
Use this skill when you need to conduct research, manage references, take notes, or create documents efficiently.
When not to use it
This skill may not be suitable for users who require a dedicated application with a graphical user interface instead of a command-line interface.
What you can build with it
Conducting Literature Reviews
Utilize the web search capabilities to gather relevant academic papers and articles for your literature review.
Managing References
Use the reference management tools to organize citations and generate bibliographies in various formats.
Creating Research Documents
Leverage document authoring features to compile research findings into structured reports or presentations.
How to install Knowledge Research Matrix
View source1. Install with the skills CLI
npx skills add hkuds/cli-anything/knowledge-research --agent claude-code2. Or install it manually
Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.
Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs
Inside SKILL.md
Written by hkudsKnowledge / Office / Research Matrix (S2 — v2 capability-based)
Scenario S2. Strongest coverage in the current ecosystem: search, reference management, notes, synthesis, documents, and diagrams all have first-party harnesses; Python/native fallbacks fill the rest.
Schema: docs/cli-matrix/matrix_registry.schema.md. Matrix plan: docs/cli-matrix/cli-matrix-plan.md.
Install
cli-hub matrix install knowledge-research
cli-hub matrix info knowledge-research
cli-hub matrix preflight knowledge-research --json
Provider selection constraints
- Use preflight as an availability report, not as a provider selector.
- Treat provider order as documentation order only.
- Choose from user requirements, output quality bar, offline needs, credential state, install cost, and provider notes.
- Escalate to paid or metered APIs only when credentials are already present or the user explicitly consents.
Offline context? Filter to offline: true providers.
Preflight
Run cli-hub matrix preflight knowledge-research --json first. Use the manual block below for extra probes or older cli-hub versions.
cli-hub list --json
python - <<'PY'
import importlib.util
for m in ("pyzotero","bibtexparser","trafilatura","readability","httpx","playwright",
"python_docx","openpyxl","pptx","reportlab","pypdf","pdfplumber","weasyprint",
"langchain","llama_index","haystack"):
print(m, importlib.util.find_spec(m) is not None)
PY
for b in pandoc qpdf pdftk exiftool latexmk tex dot mermaid plantuml hugo mkdocs jekyll; do
command -v "$b" >/dev/null && echo "$b: yes" || echo "$b: no"
done
for e in OPENAI_API_KEY ANTHROPIC_API_KEY GOOGLE_API_KEY PERPLEXITY_API_KEY TAVILY_API_KEY \
SERPAPI_API_KEY BRAVE_API_KEY FIRECRAWL_API_KEY \
NOTION_API_KEY SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY WORDPRESS_TOKEN GHOST_ADMIN_KEY; do
[ -n "${!e}" ] && echo "$e: set" || echo "$e: unset"
done
Suggest-to-user template
To enable <capability> via <provider>, please set <ENV_VAR>.
Cost: <cost notes>
Quality: <quality tier>
Reply 'skip' to fall back to <next provider>.
Example: To enable live Notion sync via the Notion API, please set NOTION_API_KEY. Cost: free tier suffices for most users. Quality: sota (round-trips block/page IDs). Reply 'skip' to fall back to local Obsidian vault + manual paste.
Capabilities
research.search — web / literature search
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-exa | harness-cli | EXA_API_KEY | metered | sota | no |
cli-anything-browser / safari / clibrowser | harness-cli | browser installed | free | high | no |
duckduckgo-search | python | pkg | free | good | no |
googlesearch-python | python | pkg | free | good | no |
| Perplexity API | api | PERPLEXITY_API_KEY | paid | sota | no |
| Tavily | api | TAVILY_API_KEY | metered | high | no |
| Brave Search | api | BRAVE_API_KEY | metered | good | no |
| Google Custom Search | api | GOOGLE_API_KEY | metered | high | no |
research.retrieve — fetch article text / scrape pages
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-browser / safari / clibrowser | harness-cli | harness installed | free | high | no |
trafilatura | python | pkg | free | high | yes |
readability-lxml | python | pkg | free | good | yes |
httpx + manual parse | python | pkg | free | basic | yes |
playwright | python | pkg + browsers | free | sota | no |
| Firecrawl | api | FIRECRAWL_API_KEY | metered | sota | no |
| ScrapingBee | api | SCRAPINGBEE_API_KEY | paid | high | no |
research.reference — citations, BibTeX, references
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-zotero | harness-cli | Zotero installed | free | sota | yes |
pyzotero | python | pkg + Zotero key | free | high | no |
habanero (Crossref) | python | pkg | free | high | no |
bibtexparser | python | pkg | free | good | yes |
| Crossref REST | api | none | free | high | no |
| Semantic Scholar | api | SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY (optional) | free | high | no |
knowledge.note — note-taking / PKM
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-obsidian | harness-cli | Obsidian installed | free | sota | yes |
cli-anything-mubu | harness-cli | Mubu installed | free | high | no |
obsidian-cli | public-cli | bin + vault path | free | high | yes |
raw markdown + git | native | git | free | good | yes |
mdformat | python | pkg | free | good | yes |
| Notion API | api | NOTION_API_KEY | free | sota | no |
| Roam / Logseq sync | — | — | — | — | — |
knowledge.outline — outlining
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-mubu | harness-cli | Mubu installed | free | high | no |
OPML via lxml | python | pkg | free | good | yes |
YAML outlines + yq | native | binary | free | good | yes |
knowledge.synthesize — multi-doc synthesis / summarization
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-notebooklm | harness-cli | harness installed | metered | sota | no |
cli-anything-intelwatch | harness-cli | harness installed | free-metered | high | partial |
langchain / llama_index + local LLM | python | pkg + ollama | free | high | yes |
haystack | python | pkg | free | good | partial |
| Claude / OpenAI / Gemini (long context) | api | model key | metered | sota | no |
document.author — write docs (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, PDF)
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-libreoffice | harness-cli | LibreOffice installed | free | high | yes |
cli-anything-anygen | harness-cli | harness installed | free | high | yes |
python-docx / openpyxl / python-pptx / reportlab | python | pkg | free | good | yes |
| Google Docs API | api | OAuth token | metered | sota | no |
| Microsoft Graph | api | Azure app + token | metered | sota | no |
document.format — convert / reformat
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
pandoc | native | binary | free | sota | yes |
cli-anything-libreoffice (headless convert) | harness-cli | LibreOffice | free | high | yes |
docx2pdf | python | pkg + Word/LO | free | good | yes |
weasyprint | python | pkg | free | high | yes |
| CloudConvert | api | CLOUDCONVERT_API_KEY | metered | sota | no |
document.pdf — manipulate PDFs (split, merge, OCR, extract)
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
qpdf / pdftk | native | binary | free | sota | yes |
pypdf | python | pkg | free | high | yes |
pdfplumber | python | pkg | free | high | yes |
pdf2image | python | pkg + poppler | free | good | yes |
ocrmypdf | native | binary + tesseract | free | high | yes |
| Adobe PDF Services | api | Adobe creds | paid | sota | no |
diagram.create — diagrams, flowcharts, architecture
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cli-anything-drawio | harness-cli | drawio installed | free | sota | yes |
cli-anything-mermaid | harness-cli | mermaid-cli | free | high | yes |
graphviz (dot) | native | binary | free | high | yes |
plantuml | native | binary | free | high | yes |
publish.web — publish articles / blog posts
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
contentful | public-cli | bin + space token | metered | high | no |
sanity | public-cli | bin + project token | metered | high | no |
hugo / mkdocs / jekyll / pelican | native/python | binary/pkg | free | high | yes |
| WordPress REST | api | app password | free | high | no |
| Ghost Admin | api | GHOST_ADMIN_KEY | free | high | no |
| Medium (legacy) | api | token | free | good | no |
publish.latex — build PDFs from LaTeX
| Provider | Kind | Requires | Cost | Quality | Offline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
latexmk + texlive | native | binaries | free | sota | yes |
pylatex | python | pkg + texlive | free | high | yes |
| Overleaf API | api | OVERLEAF_API_KEY | paid | sota | no |
| Tectonic | native | binary | free | high | yes |
Recipes
-
literature-review— survey a topic, extract key papers, synthesize. Uses:research.search,research.retrieve,research.reference,knowledge.synthesize,document.author. -
meeting-to-doc— turn a recorded meeting into a structured document. Uses:text.transcribe(via S1 matrix),knowledge.synthesize,document.author,document.format. -
blog-post— research → write → publish. Uses:research.search,research.retrieve,knowledge.synthesize,document.author,publish.web. -
paper-draft— research + citations + LaTeX. Uses:research.reference,knowledge.synthesize,document.author,publish.latex. -
competitive-brief— fetch competitor pages, extract positioning, produce a briefing deck. Uses:research.retrieve,knowledge.synthesize,document.author(PPTX). -
pdf-book-digest— ingest a PDF book, OCR if needed, produce chapter summaries + quote file. Uses:document.pdf,knowledge.synthesize,knowledge.note.
Known gaps
- Notion — Notion API exists as an escalation, but there is no harness for local-first Notion workflows. Recurs in S11 (team comms).
- Google Docs / Microsoft 365 live editing — API path only.
- LaTeX harness —
latexmk+ Tectonic cover the native path, but no agent-native wrapper yet. - Translation — no first-party CLI; Python fallback and APIs only.
Agent guidance
- Run preflight once per session. Many capabilities have strong Python or native paths that bypass the need to install anything.
- Prefer local for sensitive docs (legal, health, internal): use Obsidian + local LLM +
whisperrather than cloud APIs. - Citations are load-bearing — for academic work always route through
research.referenceso bibliographies stay consistent. - Chain
document.formatat the end, not the middle: author in the richest source format (markdown or LaTeX) and convert last. - Workspace discipline — one directory per project; keep
refs.bib, source markdown, figures, and output PDFs colocated.
Frequently asked questions about Knowledge Research Matrix
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