Research Lookup (Claude Skill)

Look up current research information using parallel-cli search (primary, fast web search), the Parallel Chat API (deep research), or Perplexity sonar-pro-search (academic paper searches).


Type	Claude Skill
Supplier	K-Dense Inc. (community OSS)
Availability	GA — part of the actively maintained K-Dense `scientific-agent-skills` collection
Pricing	Free / OSS (MIT)
Capabilities	Read/Write — Claude runs the skill’s Python locally (Bash), not as an MCP tool

How to install

Claude Code / Claude.ai — Skills CLI (recommended):
```
npx skills add K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
```
Installs the K-Dense collection; enable the research-lookup skill when prompted. Works across Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex via the Agent Skills spec (requires Node ≥ 18).
Claude Code / Claude Desktop — manual clone:
```
git clone https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
cp -r scientific-agent-skills/skills/research-lookup ~/.claude/skills/
```
Project-scoped alternative: copy into .claude/skills/ instead of ~/.claude/skills/. The skill declares its own Python dependencies in its SKILL.md; install them (the K-Dense skills generally use uv / pip) when prompted on first use.

What it does

Look up current research information using parallel-cli search (primary, fast web search), the Parallel Chat API (deep research), or Perplexity sonar-pro-search (academic paper searches). Automatically routes queries to the best backend. Use for finding papers, gathering research data, and verifying scientific information. Note: query text is transmitted to api.parallel.ai (PARALLEL_API_KEY) and, for academic searches, to openrouter.ai (OPENROUTER_API_KEY).

Primary use cases: finding papers, gathering research data, and verifying scientific information.

Notes

Distributed as a SKILL.md (plus code examples) in the K-Dense collection — Claude executes it locally via Bash/Python rather than as an MCP server. Upstream license: MIT. The skill name to enable after install is research-lookup.

Sources

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