perplexity-deep-research

perplexity-deep-research is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from jakkaj/tools. It costs 124 tokens per session (877 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A small command-line tool for sending long, multi-source research questions to the Perplexity API. The Perplexity API is an online service that returns research answers based on web sources.

In plain words
What is it for?
Running deep research such as broad topic surveys, literature searches, and investigations that need many sources, provided a Perplexity API key is available.
Why use it?
It is intended for investigations that may take longer than a normal tool request and can avoid a shorter request timeout.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/jakkaj/tools/perplexity-deep-research
Any agent
npx skills add jakkaj/tools --skill perplexity-deep-research
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jakkaj/tools

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for perplexity-deep-research

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jakkaj/tools/perplexity-deep-research.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/jakkaj/tools/perplexity-deep-research)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jakkaj/tools/perplexity-deep-research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jakkaj/tools/perplexity-deep-research.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 124 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 877 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00124 $0.00877
Opus 5 $0.00062 $0.00439
Sonnet 5 $0.00025 $0.00175
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00088

Measured 5d ago against content hash 9d61434dc7c1, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

perplexity-deep-research scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 5d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (pplx_research.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/general/perplexity-deep-research/SKILL.md · 77 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 77 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

perplexity-deep-research

A tiny bundled CLI (pplx_research.py, Python stdlib only) that POSTs straight to Perplexity's HTTP API with a long client-side timeout, so deep research jobs finish instead of dying at the MCP's ~5-minute cap.

When to use this vs the perplexity MCP

Situation Use
Quick fact, summary, single question (seconds) perplexity MCP (perplexity_ask) — simplest
Deep / multi-source research, expected > 5 min this skill (sonar-deep-research)
MCP call timed out this skill

Prerequisites

  • PERPLEXITY_API_KEY in the environment (already present in this setup's env and every MCP config). The CLI reads it directly; no extra config.
  • python3 (stdlib only — nothing to install).

Usage

The CLI (pplx_research.py) lives next to this file in the skill folder. Invoke it with python3, pointing at the installed path (skills install to ~/.agents/skills/perplexity-deep-research/, symlinked into ~/.claude/skills/):

# Deep research (default model = sonar-deep-research, default timeout = 1800s/30min)
python3 ~/.agents/skills/perplexity-deep-research/pplx_research.py "Survey the current state of X, with sources"

# Or cd into the skill folder first, then call it directly
cd ~/.agents/skills/perplexity-deep-research && python3 pplx_research.py "your deep research question here"

# Quick / cheap call with the fast model
python3 pplx_research.py --model sonar "what is the capital of France?"

# Give it even longer, and bias toward recent sources
python3 pplx_research.py --timeout 2400 --recency month "what changed recently in Y?"

# Raw JSON (for programmatic use)
python3 pplx_research.py --json "..."

Options

Flag Default Meaning
prompt (positional) The research question
--model sonar-deep-research sonar, sonar-pro, or sonar-deep-research
--timeout 1800 Client timeout (seconds). This is the knob that beats the MCP's ~5-min cap.
--system Optional system prompt
--recency hour / day / week / month / year
--json off Print raw API response instead of formatted text

Read the full file on GitHub · 77 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 5d ago First seen · 77 lines · 124 tokens per session scan A 9d61434dc7c1

Subscribe to this mod's changes

perplexity-deep-research is a skill published in the GitHub repository jakkaj/tools (5 stars, last pushed 19d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 124 tokens to every session and 877 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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