# Web Research with Perplexity

**Default**: Call Perplexity MCP directly.

## Critical Routing Rules

- Use this for web-grounded research: comparisons, recommendations, best practices, standards, recent developments, licensing, ecosystem, and market/release facts.
- Do not use this for narrow API syntax or framework examples. Route those to `looking-up-docs`; prefer official docs for exact syntax.
- Do not answer research questions from memory. Use current sources, cite URLs, and mark stale-source risk or unknowns. If live retrieval is unavailable, say exactly that final evidence must be grounded in URL-cited sources before factual claims or recommendations are trusted.
- Separate sourced facts from recommendation/judgment. If evidence is missing, say what is missing instead of filling gaps.
- If the user asks to "describe the workflow", describe the source-gathering and output structure; do not present an uncited final recommendation as fact.

## Response Contract

For research output, include:

1. Research question and decision criteria.
2. Sources consulted or source plan; citations/URLs required for factual claims. If only a plan is available, state: "final evidence must be grounded in URL-cited sources."
3. Evidence table or bullets grouped by criterion.
4. Recommendation separated from sourced facts.
5. Unknowns, assumptions, and stale-source risks.

## Best For

- Technology comparisons (X vs Y)
- Best practices, industry standards
- OWASP, security guidelines
- Official docs as supporting sources for non-syntax facts
- Stable technical content

## Default Mode: Direct Web Research

Use this for 90% of research requests. When user says "ask Perplexity", "research", "look up", etc., use the available web research tool with a scoped research question.

This is fast, reliable, and what users expect.

## Query Formulation Tips

- Be specific: "Go 1.25 error handling best practices 2025"
- Include context: "Redis vs Memcached for session storage in Go services"
- Ask comparisons: "Pros and cons of gRPC vs REST for microservices"
- Include year: "Claude Code context optimization 2025"

## Reference Following (Deep Research)

After Perplexity returns results with citations:

1. **Review all cited URLs** in the response
2. **WebFetch top 2-3 most relevant sources** for deeper context
3. **Synthesize comprehensive answer** combining all sources

```
# After Perplexity response with citations
WebFetch(url="<cited-url-1>", prompt="Extract key details about <topic>")
WebFetch(url="<cited-url-2>", prompt="Extract implementation examples")
```

Use reference following when:

- Initial answer is high-level and needs specifics
- User asks "tell me more" or "dig deeper"
- Implementing something that needs detailed guidance

## Output Structure

```markdown
## Summary

[Key findings - 2-3 sentences]

## Details

[Organized findings by topic]

## Recommendations

[Actionable items for the project]

## Sources

- [Source](url) - [what was learned]
```
