1
Rigorous, transparent deep-research engine with mandated multi-cycle investigation per theme and APA 7th citations — not a black-box API wrapper.
Best Research Skills for Claude Code (2026)
The best Claude Code skills for research work — from official skill repos to community contributors. Hand-filtered from 15 genuinely relevant results across 30,000+ skills.
✅ 10 curated📊 15 relevant in catalog
At a glance
Our top pick for research is academic-deep-research: Rigorous, transparent deep-research engine with mandated multi-cycle investigation per theme and APA 7th citations — not a black-box API wrapper. literature-review and comprehensive-research-agent round out the podium. This list includes skills maintained by K-Dense AI, Microsoft. 10 of the 10 picks are rated high-relevance for this exact use case.
2
Conducts systematic literature reviews across PubMed, arXiv, bioRxiv, and Semantic Scholar for comprehensive academic research.
3
Multi-tool research agent emphasizing thorough validation, error recovery, and transparent reasoning across research tasks.
4
Web-grounded AI search with citations and multi-step reasoning for up-to-date, source-referenced research.
5
Free Exa MCP search covering web, code, and company research — no API key needed — for fast general research.
6
AI-optimized Tavily web search for comprehensive research, current-events lookup, and domain-specific queries with answer summaries.
7
Recency-focused research engine synthesizing the last 30 days across 10+ sources (Reddit, X, YouTube, HN, web) for trend research.
8
Microsoft's multi-turn iterative deep-research skill for in-depth codebase investigation with zero tolerance for shallow analysis.
9
Searches PubMed/bioRxiv, summarizes papers, builds citation graphs, and drafts literature-review sections end to end.
10
Builds structured company research briefs with executive quotes, product strategy, and org context for competitive and market research.
Frequently asked
What is the best research skill for Claude Code?
academic-deep-research (from LeoYeAI/openclaw-master-skills) is our #1 pick. Rigorous, transparent deep-research engine with mandated multi-cycle investigation per theme and APA 7th citations — not a black-box API wrapper. It ranked first out of 15 genuinely relevant skills we evaluated for research.
Are there official research skills from major companies?
Yes — this ranking includes skills maintained by K-Dense AI, Microsoft. Official and corporate-maintained skills tend to be better documented and more actively updated than one-off community scripts.
How do I install a research skill in Claude Code?
Open any skill on this list for full instructions. In most cases you copy the skill folder (with its SKILL.md) into your project's .claude/skills/ directory, or install it via the source repo's plugin marketplace. All 10 listed skills are open source and free.