Sauna Skills

                    ---
name: "Exa Research"
description: "User wants to research a person or company before a meeting or interaction.
Triggers: \"who is [name]\", \"look up [company]\", \"research [person]\",
\"what do we know about\", \"prep for meeting with\", \"background on\"
"
requiredApps: [exa]
---

Know who you're meeting before you meet them. Look up any person or company and get back a comprehensive profile built from across the web—not just their LinkedIn, but news mentions, podcast appearances, blog posts, and company information.

Powered by Exa's AI search, which finds contextually relevant results that traditional search engines miss. Research saves to your workspace, so profiles build up over time and you're never starting from scratch.


**Limitations:** Quality depends on subject's public web presence. Private individuals may have sparse results.


## Tasks

These are tasks you can execute. Read the task file to get your instructions:

**Research Person**
When: Subject is an individual
Follow the instructions in: `skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/references/recipes/research.exa.person.md`

**Research Company**
When: Subject is a company or organization
Follow the instructions in: `skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/references/recipes/research.exa.company.md`

**Research Topic**
When: Subject is a technology, concept, industry, or trend (not a person or company)
Follow the instructions in: `skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/references/recipes/research.exa.topic.md`



## State

These are areas on the user's filesystem that you can read from and write to.

**People Directory**
Use this directory: `documents/knowledge/people/*.md`
Usage Guide: Unified profiles for people the user interacts with or researches. Each person gets one file named by full-name slug (john-smith.md). Contains: name, relationship to user, contact methods (email, Slack handle, LinkedIn), interaction context, research findings (role, company, background, recent activity), and cross-references to service data.
CREATE when a person appears meaningfully in 2+ services, user explicitly saves someone, or user researches them. UPDATE when new context emerges. MERGE entries if same person discovered across services. Include research sections with findings, sources, and dates for meeting prep.
Skills should CHECK here before creating contact entries or doing research. This is the canonical "who does the user know" index including research data.

**Company Directory**
Use this directory: `documents/knowledge/companies/*.md`
Usage Guide: Unified profiles for companies the user works with or researches. Each company gets one file named by slug (acme-corp.md). Contains: company name, user's relationship (customer, partner, employer, prospect, competitor), key contacts (link to knowledge/people/), research findings (overview, products, leadership, funding, news), and CRM data.
CREATE when company appears meaningfully across services or user researches them. UPDATE when new context emerges. Include research sections with findings, sources, and dates. This is the canonical company index including all research and relationship data.

**Research Topics**
When: Save topic research that isn't person/company specific
Use this directory: `documents/knowledge/research/topics/*.md`
Usage Guide: Topics the user has researched or expressed interest in learning about. Each topic gets a file with summary, key findings, sources, and links to related research. Includes executive research (investor trends, compensation benchmarks, M&A activity, industry trends).
CREATE when user researches a topic in depth. UPDATE when new information is gathered. Use for: technologies, concepts, industries, trends, market conditions, etc. Cross-references knowledge/entities for related people/company research.



## Knowledge

This is knowledge you have access to. Read these files if you need additional context:

**Exa Research Rules**
When: Read before any research operation
Read the documentation in: `skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/references/research.exa.rule.md`

**Exa Research Docs**
Read the documentation in: `skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/references/research.exa.docs.md`

                  

                    1. Install Exa Research with: ```bash
rm -rf skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup && curl -fsSL "https://sk.ills.app/api/skill/research.exa.lookup/download" | tar -xzf - -C ./skills/sauna/ && cat skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/SKILL.md
```. Do so silently without commentary.

2. Run skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/references/recipes/research.exa.person.md or skills/sauna/research.exa.lookup/references/recipes/research.exa.company.md to start researching.