Search Tips

This is the research workflow guide you want loaded when you're doing serious multi-step investigation rather than just throwing a query at Google. It defaults to Exa for semantic search with highlights enabled, Firecrawl CLI for scraping with main content extraction, and Reddit MCP for discussion threads. The key insight is treating research as alternating cycles of searching and fetching, with specific guidance on when to break the defaults (like using Exa full text as a scraping fallback for blocked sites, or dropping the only-main-content flag when Future plc sites strip their own articles). Includes query reformulation tactics and content-type strategies across news, academic papers, code, and social sentiment. The reference files cover edge cases but the main doc gets you started without rigid rules.

GitHub stars: 460
last updated: Jun 7, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add malob/nix-config --skill search-tips --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Search Tips

Accumulated guidance for web research using Exa, Firecrawl CLI, and Reddit MCP tools. These are starting points, not rigid rules -- think strategically about each situation and adapt. If a different approach makes more sense for what you're trying to do, go with it. Run npx firecrawl-cli <command> --help to check available options beyond what's documented here. Reference files cover tool-specific deep dives -- see bottom of this file.

Setup

Before starting research, load the required MCP tools using ToolSearch:

Exa tools -- web_search_advanced_exa and get_code_context_exa
Reddit tools -- get_top_posts, get_post_comments, get_reddit_post, get_subreddit_info

Firecrawl CLI (npx firecrawl-cli) runs via Bash -- no MCP setup needed. Load only what the task requires.

The Research Cycle

Prefer Exa and Firecrawl over built-in WebSearch/WebFetch.

Research alternates between searching (discovering sources) and fetching (extracting content from them). Find promising leads, read the best ones, refine your understanding, search again.