Abstract

Every professional regularly faces the same challenge: you need to quickly understand what research says about a topic, evaluate which sources to trust, and turn your findings into something useful for a specific audience. This is knowledge work at its core, and it's exactly where AI can be transformative. In this exercise, you'll build a complete research pipeline using Claude that takes you from raw web searches all the way to polished literature reviews and executive briefs. Everything will be then automatically delivered via email and Google Drive through an n8n automation workflow. You'll create three specialized Skills (Source Evaluator, Research Synthesizer, Research Communicator), connect Claude to live data via MCP, and then build your first no-code automation agent in n8n that Claude can call directly. The pipeline pattern (Validate, Analyze, Communicate, Deliver) extends Exercise 1 with a powerful new concept: connecting Claude to real-world actions through automation.

What You'll Build

By the end of this exercise, you'll have built a Smart Research Assistant that:

• Searches the web for papers and articles on any topic
• Reads, summarizes, and critically evaluates sources
• Identifies key themes, debates, and knowledge gaps across multiple papers
• Produces a structured literature review or research brief
• Automatically delivers the finished report via email and saves it to Google Drive — through an n8n workflow that Claude calls via MCP

You'll build this using Claude Skills (Projects), MCP, web search, Claude Artifacts, and n8n (a no-code automation platform).

Exercise Roadmap

• Manual research workflow with Claude
• Build three specialized Research Skills
• Conduct research with web search
• Build the n8n Research Delivery Agent
• Connect everything and run the full pipeline
• Extend and customize