| name | using-ai-frontier |
| description | AI frontier plugin — gives Claude and agents access to latest scientific research, SOTA discovery, and architecture evaluation. Use when needing SOTA methods, research consensus, implementation guidance, or evaluating whether a codebase uses optimal patterns and architectures. |
| keywords | ["research","papers","SOTA","literature-review","methods","AI","machine-learning","foundation-models","architecture","evaluation","perplexity"] |
AI Frontier
You have access to deep research intelligence via four data sources and four synthesis agents.
Critical: Distinguishing Foundational from Current SOTA
Citation count measures influence, not currency. A paper with 5000 citations from 2022 may be foundational but no longer SOTA. Always consider:
- Publication date — papers < 6 months old are current; > 2 years old need SOTA validation
- Supersession — has a newer method replaced this? (e.g., ReAct 2022 → superseded by ToT, LATS, ReWOO)
- Adoption signal — GitHub stars, HF upvotes, framework integrations indicate real-world use
When unsure whether a method is still SOTA, use perplexity-search --sota to get web-grounded current status.
Decision Tree
When you encounter these situations, use the appropriate tool:
Need to evaluate architecture against SOTA
Agent: architecture-evaluator
Triggers: "Is this the right architecture?", "Evaluate my approach", "Are there better patterns for X?", "Review this against SOTA", "Is my architecture optimal?", "What patterns should I use for X?"
Returns: SCOPE, CURRENT ARCHITECTURE (with ASCII diagram), SOTA ALTERNATIVES, GAP ANALYSIS, RECOMMENDATIONS, REFERENCES
Need to understand what the field knows
Agent: literature-reviewer
Triggers: "What's the SOTA for X?", "Survey of approaches to X", "What does the research say about X?"
Returns: DATA SOURCES, CONSENSUS, FRONTIER, OPEN QUESTIONS, KEY PAPERS, METHOD TAXONOMY, APPLICABILITY
Need to choose between approaches
Agent: method-analyst
Triggers: "Should I use X or Y?", "Compare methods for Z", "Tradeoffs between approaches"
Returns: COMPARISON MATRIX, RECOMMENDATION, IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
Need to implement a research method
Agent: implementation-guide
Triggers: "How to implement X from paper Y?", "Code for method Z", "Architecture of approach X"
Returns: CORE ALGORITHM, ARCHITECTURE, REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATIONS, ADAPTATION GUIDE
Quick lookups (skip agents, use skills directly)
| Need | Skill | Example |
|---|
| Bleeding-edge preprints | arxiv-search | Latest papers on speculative decoding |
| Citations + TLDRs + impact | semantic-scholar-search | How influential is paper X? |
| AI summaries + trending | hf-papers-search | Trending papers, AI-extracted keywords |
| Current SOTA / what replaced X | perplexity-search --sota | What replaced ReAct for agent reasoning? |
| Last N days developments | perplexity-search --recent | New RAG frameworks this month |
| Web-grounded fact check | perplexity-search | Is paper X still considered SOTA? |
When NOT to Use
- API docs, library usage, tutorials — use web search or documentation skills
- Common engineering knowledge — not a research question
- Debugging errors — use debugging tools
Data Sources
Free (no API key)
- arXiv — preprints with categories, dates, PDF links
- Semantic Scholar — citations, TLDRs, impact scores, venue info
- HF Papers — AI summaries, community upvotes, code repos, trending
Requires OPENROUTER_API_KEY (~$0.003/query)
- Perplexity — web-grounded SOTA discovery, recent developments, practitioner adoption
All retrieval skills return a unified JSON envelope. Agents return structured markdown sections.
Recommended Workflow for Research Questions
- Academic search (arXiv + S2 + HF) → structured paper metadata
- SOTA validation (Perplexity
--sota) → what's current, what's superseded
- Synthesis (agent) → merged analysis with both academic rigor and SOTA awareness
If Perplexity is unavailable (no API key), agents still work with academic data only — results will have citation-based ranking without web-grounded SOTA validation.
