Claude Research Agent: Build a Source-Checked Workflow

Claude can act as a research agent for structured tasks: reviewing a set of sources, synthesizing findings across documents, identifying gaps, and drafting a research summary. It does this best when you give it a clear question, specific source material, and explicit instructions about what counts as a reliable finding. Left to fill in the gaps, it produces confident-sounding output that may not hold up to verification.

The workflow matters as much as the model. Tools like fenbs help by keeping your research question, verified source links, and progress across sessions so a new session picks up from what was checked, not from the beginning.

What Claude can do in a research workflow

• Summarize and compare multiple documents you paste or attach.
• Identify common themes, contradictions, and gaps across a set of sources.
• Draft literature reviews, competitive landscapes, or background sections from your source notes.
• Generate follow-up questions to guide further reading.
• Assess the methodology of a study you describe to it.
• Format citations in a consistent style from reference details you provide.

Claude cannot browse the web unless you use a version or integration that provides web access. If you are relying on its training knowledge for facts, verify those facts on primary sources before including them in your final work. The Claude agent SDK guide explains how developers build automated research pipelines for larger-scale tasks.

How to brief Claude for research

1. Write out the research question in one sentence. Be specific: "What are the current federal requirements for disclosing AI use in consumer financial services?" is more useful than "What are the AI regulations?"
2. List the sources you are working from and paste or attach their content. Tell Claude which sources you consider authoritative for this question.
3. State what format you need: a structured summary, a comparison table, a list of key findings, a draft section.
4. Tell Claude what to do when it is uncertain: flag the gap rather than guess.
5. Ask it to note which claim came from which source so you can verify each one.

Assessing sources before relying on them

Claude cannot tell you whether a source is reliable — it can only work with what you provide. Your source assessment step happens before you brief Claude. For regulatory research, prefer primary sources: the CFPB's own guidance, SEC releases, FINRA rules. For competitive research, prefer the vendor's own documentation and official filings over roundup articles.

Ask Claude to flag anything in your source material that seems internally inconsistent or that contradicts another source you have provided. It can identify surface-level contradictions. Whether those contradictions reflect a genuine change in policy or a drafting difference in the sources is still a judgment call you need to make.

Keeping verified findings across sessions

Research rarely finishes in one session. You read one batch of sources, identify gaps, find more sources, and repeat. If each session starts fresh, you spend time re-explaining what was already confirmed. The answer is to keep a running record: which sources have been reviewed, which claims have been verified, which questions remain open.

The Claude code memory guide covers a similar challenge for development work. The same discipline applies here: save the confirmed findings and the open questions before ending a session, so the next one starts from a known position.

Reviewing Claude's output

Read every summary Claude produces against the source it drew from. Check that the claim Claude makes is actually in the source and has not been softened, overstated, or combined with another source's finding in a way that changes the meaning. This step is not optional: research that Claude drafted but nobody checked is a liability, not a timesaver.

For regulatory or compliance research, the person responsible for the advice or decision must read the primary source themselves, not rely on Claude's paraphrase. Claude's summary can help you find the relevant section faster; it cannot replace your professional judgment about what the rule requires.

Handling conflicting sources

When two sources say different things, Claude can usually identify the contradiction if you ask it to compare them directly. What it cannot do is decide which source is correct. That judgment depends on recency, authority, and context that you bring from your domain knowledge. Ask Claude to present both claims, cite which source holds each, and note the nature of the disagreement. Your job is then to determine which is more reliable for your specific research question.

What Claude does not do here

Claude does not browse live databases, access paywalled journals, or retrieve documents from the web unless an integration gives it that tool. It cannot conduct interviews, run experiments, or make judgment calls about whether a finding is significant. And it cannot verify that a source you provided is current — a guidance document from 2023 may have been superseded. Check publication dates before relying on anything time-sensitive.

How to do this with fenbs

1. Create a free account and add a project for the research task.
2. Write the research question as a task, with the scope, sources, and what format the output should take.
3. Add each source to Links and listings as you verify it, with a note on what it confirmed.
4. Record key findings and open questions in AI context notes so the next session knows where you are.
5. Connect Claude from Integrations so it reads the current research state and continues from there.