---
id: HKUDS/CLI-Anything/knowledge-research
version: "228f5311"
license: Apache-2.0
install: manual
updated: 2026-07-09
---

# cli-hub-matrix-knowledge-research — This skill bridges research, documentation, and automation by centralizing CLI-based tools into a cohesive agent-native environment. It enables seamless knowledge management across multiple platforms while supporting structured document creation workflows. Perfect for teams building intelligent automation systems that coordinate diverse software tools.

Publisher: HKUDS · Stars: 46201 · Updated: 2026-07-09

Install (manual): `git clone https://github.com/HKUDS/CLI-Anything`

## SKILL.md

# Knowledge / 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`](../../docs/cli-matrix/matrix_registry.schema.md). Matrix plan: [`docs/cli-matrix/cli-matrix-plan.md`](../../docs/cli-matrix/cli-matrix-plan.md).

## Install

```bash
cli-hub matrix install knowledge-research
cli-hub matrix info    knowledge-research
cli-hub matrix preflight knowledge-research --json
```

---

## Provider selection constraints

1. Use preflight as an availability report, not as a provider selector.
2. Treat provider order as documentation order only.
3. Choose from user requirements, output quality bar, offline needs, credential state, install cost, and provider notes.
4. 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.

```bash
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 + `whisper` rather than cloud APIs.
- **Citations are load-bearing** — for academic work always route through `research.reference` so bibliographies stay consistent.
- **Chain `document.format` at 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.


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