Data Research

Structured research pipeline: search sources, extract structured data, archive raw, deduplicate, update canonical trackers, backlink entities.

Contract

One skill for any email-to-structured-data pipeline. The only differences between tracking investor updates, expenses, and company metrics are the search queries, extraction schemas, and tracker page format. All three use the same 7-phase pipeline with parameterized recipes.

When to Use

• User wants to track structured data from email, web, or API sources
• User says "research", "track", "extract from email", "build a tracker"
• User mentions investor updates, donations, company metrics, filings
• User wants to set up recurring data collection (with cron recipe)

Phases

Phase 1: Define Research Recipe

Infer the research target from conversation context, recent brain activity, active tasks (ops/tasks.md), and memory files. If the request is ambiguous, present the most likely interpretation based on what the user has been working on. Only ask for clarification if context is genuinely insufficient. Options:

• Pick a built-in recipe: investor-updates, expense-tracker, company-updates
• Define a custom recipe with: source queries, classification rules, extraction schema, tracker page path, tracker format

Recipes are YAML files at ~/.gbrain/recipes/{name}.yaml. Scaffold a new one by copying a built-in recipe file and editing its fields.

Phase 2: Search Sources

Brain first (maybe we already have this data). Then:

• Email via credential gateway: windowed queries (quarterly, monthly if truncated)
• Web via search: public filings, press releases, regulatory data
• APIs: any structured data source the recipe defines
• Attachments: PDF extraction, HTML stripping

Phase 3: Classify

Deterministic first (regex patterns from recipe), LLM fallback. Log every LLM fallback for future regex improvement (fail-improve loop). Skip marketing, newsletters, noise based on recipe's classification rules.

Phase 4: Extract Structured Data

EXTRACTION INTEGRITY RULE:

1. Save raw source immediately (before any extraction)
2. Extract fields using deterministic regex first, LLM fallback
3. When summarizing batch results: re-read from saved files
4. Never trust LLM working memory after batch processing

This prevents a known hallucination bug where batch-processed amounts were 13/13 wrong from LLM working memory while saved files were correct.

Phase 5: Archive Raw Sources

• put_raw_data for email bodies, API responses
• file_upload for PDF attachments, documents
• Create .redirect.yaml pointers for large files in storage
• Every tracker entry must link back to its raw source

Phase 6: Deduplicate

Before adding to tracker:

• Exact match (same key fields) → skip
• Fuzzy match (same entity + date + similar amount within tolerance) → flag for review
• Different amount for same entity+date → add with note (could be correction)

Phase 7: Update Canonical Tracker + Backlink

• Parse existing tracker page (markdown table)
• Append new entries in correct section (grouped by year/quarter/entity)
• Compute running totals
• Backlink every mentioned entity (person → people/ page, company → companies/ page)
• Uses enrichment service for entity pages

Built-In Recipes

Three example recipes ship with GBrain (see ~/.gbrain/recipes/):

1. investor-updates — extract MRR, ARR, growth, burn, runway, headcount from investor update emails
2. expense-tracker — extract amounts, recipients, platforms from receipt emails (subscriptions, services, recurring charges)
3. company-updates — extract revenue, users, key metrics from portfolio company update emails

When it fails

Follow the agent operator protocol for any gbrain error code, exit code, [AGENT] block or notice block. Specific to this skill:

• file_upload is refused for a path outside the allowed root (remote callers are confined): ask the user to upload from the brain host or pass the content inline.
• put_page / add_timeline_entry returns revision_conflict or write_pending: re-read and merge for the first; poll gbrain write-request <request_id> for the second.
• An extraction source rate-limits (rate_limited): back off for the stated delay and keep the cursor; log the gap instead of guessing the missing rows.

Anti-Patterns

• Trusting LLM working memory for amounts after batch processing (use extraction integrity rule)
• Creating tracker entries without raw source links
• Running without deduplication (leads to double-counted entries)
• Hardcoding source-specific patterns in the pipeline code (use recipes)

Output Format

Brain page at the recipe's tracker_page path with markdown tables:

### 2026

| Date | Company | MRR | ARR | Growth | Status |
|------|---------|-----|-----|--------|--------|
| 2026-04-01 | Example Co | $188K | $2.3M | +14.7% MoM | [Source](link) |

Each entry links to its raw source. Running totals at the bottom of each section.

Conventions

References skills/conventions/quality.md for citation and back-linking rules.