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Run internet research

Have Alis research published material on a question and write a cited report onto the project as a contribution. Use it for market context, comparable products or public data that no one on the project holds.

Prerequisites

  • Editor or Owner access on the project.

Start the research

  1. Open the project.
  2. In the composer at the foot of the project's screens ("What should Alis work on in this project?"), ask Alis to research the web. Write it as a brief: the question, the context it needs and how the report should read.
  3. Send it. Alis shows you a draft of the research and asks whether to start it. Once you say to start it, Alis starts the research on the project.

The research runs on its own and takes several minutes. You can leave the page meanwhile.

Read the report

  1. Open the project's Contributions. The research is there as an internet research contribution.
  2. Open it. While it runs it is marked Researching. Once it is done, the report shows with numbered markers; beside it, Question is what was asked, References lists the project material it drew on, and Sources lists the pages it cites, in the markers' order. Each source opens in a new tab.

If a run fails, Try again starts it again.

A research that follows up an earlier one shows that research under Continues: it starts from the earlier question and report.

From the CLI

alis ideate add research --project <project> --file brief.md

--reference adds context from the same project (an artifact or a contribution); --continue <research> follows up a finished research. The command returns as soon as the research has started. Read it with alis ideate research <contribution> --project <project>, which prints the report and its sources once it is ready.