Top ClawHub Skills Every AI Researcher Needs

Papers pour in from arXiv, PubMed, and journals. Searching and summarizing them by hand takes hours each week. ClawHub skills link search engines, browsers, and storage to OpenClaw agents via MCP. You can query in plain language, like "Find recent papers on transformer efficiency."

Researchers read about 250 papers a year. Tools for discovery and analysis give more time for experiments. These skills manage storage and RAG, making papers into searchable knowledge bases.

Helpful references: Fast.io Workspaces, Fast.io Collaboration, and Fast.io AI.

We checked skills for research workflow fit: paper discovery via web search and browser automation, analysis like summarization and extraction, storage for RAG, MCP compatibility, setup ease, and community activity such as stars and updates. Only active skills with MCP support qualified. We focused on free tiers for solo researchers.

Boost Your AI Research Workflow

50GB free storage, built-in RAG, and MCP tools. No credit card required for agents. Built for clawhub skills researchers workflows.

Get Started Free

Web search and content extraction without a full browser. Uses the Brave Search API to retrieve documentation, facts, and any web content.

Strengths:

• Headless web searches without spinning up a browser
• Extracts readable markdown from pages
• Configurable result count, up to 10+ results

Limitations:

• No built-in summarization
• Requires reviewing the implementation before deploying against internal URLs

Good for quick literature discovery and fact-checking. Free.

Install Command: cd ~/Projects/agent-scripts/skills/brave-search && npm ci

ClawHub Page: clawhub.ai/steipete/brave-search

A fast Rust-based headless browser with Node.js fallback. Lets agents navigate, click, fill forms, and snapshot pages via structured commands — useful for full-text paper pages and paywalled abstracts.

Strengths:

• Real browser rendering for JavaScript-heavy pages
• Screenshot and PDF capture for archiving papers
• Video recording and network interception

Limitations:

• Broad capabilities require careful permission scoping
• Heavier resource footprint than simple HTTP fetching

Good for scraping full paper pages or research portals. Free.

Install Command: npm install -g agent-browser && agent-browser install

ClawHub Page: clawhub.ai/TheSethRose/agent-browser

Intelligent workspaces for agentic teams with 19 MCP tools for file storage, RAG, and collaboration. Researchers store papers, datasets, and notes; agents query them semantically.

Strengths:

• 50GB free storage, 5,000 monthly credits
• RAG-powered AI chat with semantic search across indexed documents
• Share workspaces with human collaborators via secure URLs
• Workflow features: tasks, approvals, annotations

Limitations:

• Requires a free Fast.io account and API key
• Storage-focused; does not fetch papers directly

Good for storing and querying research data across a team. Free agent tier.

Install Command: clawhub install dbalve/fast-io

Structured coding workflow with planning, implementation, verification, and testing phases. Useful for researchers writing analysis scripts, data processors, or experiment runners.

Strengths:

• Guides agents through planning before writing code
• Never auto-executes — keeps humans in control
• Stores preferences in local memory file on request

Limitations:

• Instruction-only; does not run code autonomously
• Best paired with a code execution environment

Good for structuring research code tasks. Free.

Install Command: Download from ClawHub (instruction-only skill)

ClawHub Page: clawhub.ai/ivangdavila/code

Query, design, migrate, and optimize SQL databases. Covers SQLite, PostgreSQL, and MySQL — schema design, query writing, migrations, indexing, backup/restore, and slow query debugging.

Strengths:

• Zero-setup SQLite prototyping with CSV import/export
• EXPLAIN-based query performance analysis
• Migration script building and version tracking

Limitations:

• Requires sqlite3, psql, or mysql binaries installed
• Instruction-only; does not execute queries autonomously

Good for managing research datasets in relational databases. Free.

Install Command: Download from ClawHub (instruction-only skill)

ClawHub Page: clawhub.ai/gitgoodordietrying/sql-toolkit

Work with S3-compatible object storage covering security best practices, lifecycle policies, and access patterns. Supports AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, and MinIO.

Strengths:

• Presigned URL generation for sharing large datasets
• Lifecycle rules for cost optimization of archived papers
• Multipart upload handling for large files
• Provider-specific guidance for major platforms

Limitations:

• Instruction-only; requires an S3-compatible backend
• No built-in data indexing or search

Good for archiving large research datasets cheaply. Free.

Install Command: Download from ClawHub (instruction-only skill)

ClawHub Page: clawhub.ai/ivangdavila/s3

Advanced filesystem operations for Clawdbot — smart listing, searching, batch processing, and directory analysis.

Strengths:

• Pattern matching and full-text content search across local files
• Batch copy operations with dry-run preview
• Directory tree visualization and statistics

Limitations:

• Local filesystem only; no cloud storage
• Requires Node.js

Good for organizing local paper collections and datasets. Free.

Install Command: clawdhub install filesystem

ClawHub Page: clawhub.ai/gtrusler/clawdbot-filesystem

Clawdbot documentation expert with decision-tree navigation, search scripts, doc fetching, version tracking, and config snippets for all Clawdbot features.

Strengths:

• Covers 11 documentation categories including Concepts, Providers, and Automation
• Multiple search methods: keyword, sitemap, and full-text indexing
• Ready-to-use configuration snippets

Limitations:

• Focused on Clawdbot/OpenClaw docs specifically
• Not useful for domain-specific research literature

Good for researchers learning to build their own OpenClaw workflows. Free.

Install Command: Download from ClawHub (instruction-only skill)

ClawHub Page: clawhub.ai/NicholasSpisak/clawddocs

Begin with brave-search and agent-browser for web-based paper discovery. Add fast-io for storage and RAG across your paper collection. Layer sql-toolkit or s3 for structured data and large dataset management. Test in a dev OpenClaw setup first. Stack skills for complete flows: search, store, analyze, and share.