updating-knowledge

Updating Knowledge

Core Principles

• Systematic > ad-hoc - Follow research methodology, don't scatter searches randomly
• Cross-validate - Verify claims across multiple independent sources
• Confidence tracking - Explicitly flag single-source claims and gaps
• Concise output - Present findings efficiently, introspection in thinking blocks

Preflight Check

This skill requires web_search tool access.

Verify it's available before proceeding. If it isn't, tell the user immediately — "I need web search enabled for research tasks. Please toggle on 'Web search' in the feature menu." — and stop there rather than researching from memory alone or spending context on workarounds.

Trigger Disambiguation

Avoid triggering on generic action verbs like "update" (which could mean file/code changes instead) — trigger on the explicit knowledge-gathering requests named in the description above.

Research Workflow

1. Scope Definition (internal)

Identify in thinking block:

• What specifically needs investigation
• Current knowledge baseline
• Known gaps
• Required depth (overview vs comprehensive)

2. Source Gathering (2-10 tool calls)

Source priority:

1. Official documentation, project repos, company announcements
2. Academic papers, technical blogs with clear expertise
3. Community discussions (for ecosystem context only)

Tool selection:

• web_search - Find authoritative sources
• web_fetch - Extract complete content from any URL (no prior search required)
• Internal tools (GitHub, Drive, etc.) - Company/personal context
• Multiple tool types as needed

Gather 3-5 diverse sources minimum for cross-validation.

3. Synthesis (internal)

In thinking block:

• Cross-validate major claims across sources
• Note contradictions explicitly
• Track publication dates
• Assess source credibility
• Identify remaining gaps

4. Output (concise)

Present findings concisely:

## [Topic]

**Key findings:**
[2-3 sentence summary with most important updates]

**Current state:**
[Concise description of what's true now]

**Changes since cutoff:**
[Only if relevant - what's different]

**Gaps:**
[Only if user needs to know - what wasn't found]

Sources: [URLs]