These examples invoke the reusable routing skill through a natural-language instruction: Use the multi-provider-research skill. They do not depend on a harness-specific $ command, slash command, mention syntax, or rules-file format.
Paste an example into the instruction or chat interface of an agent harness, then replace its placeholders. The harness may use a different internal mechanism to locate an installed skill, but the natural-language instruction preserves the portable intent.
The harness must still have access to the providers named in a prompt. A provider mentioned in an instruction is not necessarily installed, connected, authenticated, or callable.
Last substantively reviewed: September 2026. Provider tools and live schemas can change.
Public: Choosing External Research Tools for AI AgentsStart with Minimum sufficient provider set for everyday research. Use Common one-provider patterns for a restricted provider, Exa Connect patterns for specialized datasets, or Complementary-provider patterns for distinct roles.
Flexible routing and provider audits contains advanced patterns. The General-purpose fill-in template lets you specify required, optional, and excluded providers.
Use the page’s Notion table of contents to jump to a section.
This is the recommended general default.
Use the multi-provider-research skill.
Use the minimum sufficient set of available providers. Select providers according to the evidence required by the research question; do not call every provider automatically.
Apply constraints in this order: explicit inclusions and exclusions, a named-provider request, a specialized-data match within the permitted scope, then a generic default.
Before research, inspect the relevant tools, connectors, integrations, and Exa Connect `dataSources` entries callable in this session. Assign each selected provider a distinct role. Do not repeat successful searches or page reads without a material verification reason.
Report unavailable task-matched providers, provider contributions, failures, substitutions, and material evidence gaps.
Research question: [YOUR QUESTION]
Installing the skill does not authorize it for every task. Use this prompt when only the current harness’s built-in search and page-reading tools are permitted:
Use only the web search and page-fetching tools provided natively by this harness.
Do not invoke, load, or apply the multi-provider-research skill. Do not call any separately connected MCP server, plugin, connector, provider skill, command-line tool, or external search or fetch provider.
If a native tool is unavailable or cannot access a required source, report the gap and stop that evidence lane. Do not substitute another interface.
In the final response, list the exact search and fetch tools used.
“Native” describes the tool surface presented by the harness. It does not prove that the harness vendor uses no external infrastructure.