Research: a report on a question, made in the background

Starting

In the sidebar, open the project's menu (the three dots) > Research…. Write the question or a short brief, and choose:

• the level: Overview (3 questions, about 10 minutes), Thorough (5 to 6, about 30 minutes) or Deep dive (8 to 10, an hour or more);
• the kind: Explain, Compare, Decide or Collect, or let GlirOS choose;
• a reviewer, if you have a cloud model to check the drafts.

GlirOS then shows the plan in a new chat in the project: change a question, untick one to skip it, and press Start.

While it works

A card above the message box shows the steps (plan, read, write, check, report) and a dot for each source found. You can go on with other chats: with a model on this PC it waits while your answer is written and goes on afterwards. Stop and save writes up what it has; Cancel stops it.

The report

• A summary, what it points to (for Decide), the key findings, a side-by-side table (for Compare), a section per question, what it could not confirm, how it was made, and the sources with their grade (A official or primary, B reputable, C a company's or a person's own, D forum or unknown).
• A claim stands on two sources from different sites or one official one; anything weaker goes under "What we could not confirm".
• Wherever its sources give two or more numbers to compare, a section shows them as a chart, and a section that names places shows them on a small map. Each number is checked against the source it comes from (one that isn't there is left out), and the map's positions are marked as approximate. The map is drawn on the PC from public outlines: nothing more goes online. Quiet moving backgrounds sit behind the headings; they stand still when the report is printed or saved as a PDF. Saved as a PDF, the report starts with a cover page and a contents page whose entries are links. In the desktop app, Save as PDF saves the file straight away (Windows asks where), with bookmarks for its sections.
• A long section folds after its first paragraph (printing opens it); a citation shows its source when you point at it, tab to it or tap it; the appendix's Figures tab lists every chart, map and set of steps. A section can show a picture from a source when the source's page gives it a free licence (with its credit, saved with the report); otherwise a card links to the page.
• Pictures made by AI are off unless you choose A few (up to 3) in the brief: they come from your picture model (Settings > Pictures; a cloud one's company is asked first), only for sections about something that can be seen, and each is marked "Made by AI" with the model's name. The appendix's Images tab lists every picture with its credit.
• It opens in the side panel, exports as a zip (in the desktop app with the PDF in it), and is kept in the project (and in its linked folder, under Research), so every chat in the project can find it.

What leaves the PC

The web searches and the page visits. The brief, the notes and the drafts stay on the PC unless the model or the reviewer is a cloud model, which GlirOS asks about first.

Searches and a key

Research makes many web searches: up to about 9 at Overview, 30 at Thorough and 80 at Deep dive. The free search (DuckDuckGo) can stop answering after many of them; your own Brave Search or Tavily key (Settings > Web search) keeps them going. The support site's article "Better web search with your own key" says what a key gives and what it costs.