Research Brief

What does Research Brief do?

Reads RSS and Atom feeds and their articles, then writes a short brief of the main stories in which every point carries a quote checked against the article.

What it declines

A task like one of these is declined with a reason, and a declined run is free:

• Facts from outside the fetched articles, opinions, or predictions.
• Researching a question across the web: it reads only the feeds given and their articles.
• Web pages that are not feeds, feeds behind a login, or private networks.
• Posting, emailing or publishing the brief; a schedule delivers it.

What does a real run of Research Brief look like?

The input, the result (shortened where it is long), how long it took, what it cost and where it ran. Live runs used public or demo material only; a run marked as from the eval suite is not a live run.

This agent needs a sandbox, and ContextStream's Slipstream worker has no sandbox provider yet, so there is no live run to show. The example comes from its eval suite.

{
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://news.example.com/feed.xml",
      "name": "Harbor City News"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://blog.example.org/atom.xml",
      "name": "Field Notes"
    }
  ],
  "max_stories": 4
}

# Research brief

## [City council approves the new harbor tram line](https://news.example.com/articles/harbor-tram?utm_source=rss)

Harbor City News, 2099-10-14

- The council approved a tram line between the harbor and the central station by nine votes to two.
  > "voted 9 to 2 on Tuesday night to approve a tram line linking the harbor with the central station"
- Building is due to start next spring and take about three years.
  > "Construction of the harbor tram line is expected to start next spring and take about three years"

## [Why the old pier is sinking](https://www.othersite.net/pier-sinking)

Field Notes, 2099-10-12

- The old pier has sunk by almost 20 cm since a storm two winters ago.
  > "the old pier has sunk by almost twenty centimetres since the storm two winters ago"

## [Measuring tides with a cheap pressure sensor](https://blog.example.org/posts/tide-sensor)

Field Notes, 2099-10-13

- A cheap pressure sensor matched the official tide tables to within a few centimetres.
  > "the readings matched the official tide tables to within a few centimetres"

## [Ferry timetable changes for winter](https://news.example.com/articles/ferry-winter)

Harbor City News, 2099-10-10

> "Winter sailings between the harbor and Gull Island will begin on the first Monday of December, with two fewer crossings each day."

> "The ferry operator said the change follows a fall in winter passengers over the past three years, especially on the early morning crossing."

What does Research Brief cost?

Research Brief costs 1,500 ContextStream credits a run, charged only when the run succeeds; a declined, failed, cancelled or timed-out run costs nothing. Credits come with every plan: Starter is free with 10,000 a month (6 runs of Research Brief, if spent on nothing else), and Pro is $19 a month with 25,000.

Which tools does Research Brief work with?

Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other MCP clients, once ContextStream offers it: through the slipstream tool of ContextStream's MCP, ss run research-brief in a terminal, or the web app. It needs a sandbox, and ContextStream's Slipstream worker has no sandbox provider yet.

• Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other MCP clients: connect ContextStream's MCP once (setup for each editor), then ask your agent to hand the job to Research Brief.
• A terminal or an agent's shell: ss run research-brief, installed with ContextStream's command line.
• The web app: the workspace's specialist library, where each run shows its price before it starts.

What access does Research Brief need?

Research Brief gets a short-lived token for one workspace, limited to 2 scopes: Models via ContextStream and Reads context. It works in one project, and only for that run.

Model agent with a sandbox. A program on ContextStream's model proxy that also drives its own sandbox. The sandbox holds no credentials. Network: only the hosts named in your input. It is stopped after 6 min. You may schedule it to run on its own.

How do I turn Research Brief on?

You cannot turn Research Brief on yet: it needs a sandbox, and ContextStream's Slipstream worker has no sandbox provider yet. It is built and tested, and its page shows how it will be called.

How do I call Research Brief from Claude Code or Codex?

Once it is offered: ss run research-brief in a terminal, or slipstream(action="run", agent="research-brief", input={...}) over MCP, with the input below.

Connect ContextStream's MCP (it also writes each editor's connection):

curl -fsSL https://contextstream.io/scripts/mcp.sh | bash

The five main Rust stories, each point quoted from its post. Over MCP:

slipstream(action="run", agent="research-brief", input={"sources":[{"url":"https://blog.rust-lang.org/feed.xml"},{"url":"https://this-week-in-rust.org/rss.xml"}],"max_stories":5}, accepted_price_credits=1500)

In a terminal (curl -fsSL https://contextstream.io/cs/install.sh | sh installs ss):

ss run research-brief sources:='[{"url":"https://blog.rust-lang.org/feed.xml"},{"url":"https://this-week-in-rust.org/rss.xml"}]' max_stories:=5

Over MCP, a call without accepted_price_credits returns the quote first; ss asks on a terminal, and scripts pass --yes.

Input

Related agents

Every Slipstream agent