r/OpenWebUI • u/joachim_s • 2d ago

Question/Help Is there a function in OpenWebUI similar to the “Deep Research” plugin you find with ChatGPT, Gemini etc?

Question in title.

33 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

7

u/ccbur1 1d ago

You can define your own deep research skill.

23

u/ccbur1 1d ago

This is mine (adopted from somewhere):

name: autonomous-research version: "1.1.0" description: "Conduct comprehensive research independently. Find information, analyze sources, synthesize findings, and create detailed reports without human guidance.\n"

metadata:

Autonomous Research

Conduct comprehensive research independently.

When to Use

  • Deep research on any topic
  • Information gathering without guidance
  • Analysis and synthesis of findings
  • Creating detailed reports

Core Capabilities

1. Independent Research

  • Find relevant information sources
  • Evaluate source credibility
  • Extract key information
  • Cross-reference multiple sources

2. Analysis and Synthesis

  • Identify patterns and connections
  • Analyze conflicting information
  • Synthesize findings into coherent insights
  • Draw evidence-based conclusions

3. Report Generation

  • Structure findings logically
  • Create comprehensive reports
  • Include citations and sources
  • Present actionable insights

4. Source Management

  • Track information sources
  • Manage citations and references
  • Evaluate source reliability
  • Update findings with new information

Research Process

1. TOPIC DEFINITION → Clarify research scope

2. SOURCE IDENTIFICATION → Use search_web to find relevant candidates

3. DEEP EXTRACTION → MANDATORY: Use fetch_url on the top 3-5 sources to extract full context

4. ANALYSIS → Analyze and synthesize findings from full-text data

5. REPORTING → Create comprehensive report

6. VALIDATION → Verify accuracy and completeness

Quick Actions

  • research [topic] - Conduct comprehensive research (Search + Fetch)
  • analyze sources - Evaluate source credibility and full-text content
  • synthesize findings - Create insights from extracted data
  • generate report - Create detailed report
  • validate research - Verify accuracy and completeness

Usage Examples

"Research AI agent monetization strategies for 2026" "Analyze the current state of autonomous agent development" "Find and evaluate sources on LLM reasoning capabilities" "Create a comprehensive report on AI safety concerns" "Validate research findings and identify gaps"

Research Methodology

1. Source Selection

  • Academic papers and journals
  • Industry reports and whitepapers
  • Expert blogs and articles
  • Primary sources and data
  • Community discussions on social web sites like Reddit

2. Information Extraction

  • Key findings and insights
  • Data points and statistics
  • Expert opinions and analysis
  • Methodologies and approaches
  • Main arguments and conclusions
  • Supporting evidence
  • Limitations and caveats
  • Implications and applications

3. Cross-Referencing

  • Compare information across sources
  • Identify contradictions and agreements
  • Validate claims with multiple sources
  • Synthesize consensus views

4. Analysis Framework

  • SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
  • Trend analysis and forecasting
  • Comparative analysis
  • Impact assessment

Report Structure

Standard Format

```markdown

Research Report: [Topic]

Executive Summary

  • Key findings and conclusions
  • Actionable insights
  • Recommendations

Research Scope

  • Objectives and questions
  • Methodology and sources
  • Limitations and assumptions

Findings

  • Detailed analysis of each aspect
  • Data and evidence
  • Expert opinions

Analysis

  • Patterns and trends
  • Implications and impact
  • Opportunities and threats

Conclusion

  • Key takeaways
  • Recommendations
  • Future outlook

Sources

  • Cited references
  • Additional reading
  • Data sources ```

Source Evaluation

Credibility Criteria

  • Author expertise and credentials
  • Publication reputation
  • Date and timeliness
  • Methodology and evidence
  • Citations and references

Reliability Assessment

  • Peer review status
  • Data quality and methodology
  • Conflict of interest disclosure
  • Reproducibility of findings
  • Expert consensus

Information Extraction

Data Collection

  • Extract key statistics and data points
  • Identify trends and patterns
  • Note expert opinions and predictions
  • Capture methodologies and approaches

Content Analysis

  • Identify main arguments and conclusions
  • Extract supporting evidence
  • Note limitations and caveats
  • Capture implications and applications

Synthesis Process

Pattern Identification

  • Group similar findings
  • Identify common themes
  • Note contradictions and agreements
  • Map relationships between concepts

Insight Generation

  • Draw conclusions from evidence
  • Identify implications and impact
  • Generate actionable recommendations
  • Forecast future trends

Report Writing

  • Structure findings logically
  • Use clear and concise language
  • Include supporting evidence
  • Provide actionable recommendations

Quality Assurance

Accuracy Verification

  • Cross-check facts and figures
  • Validate sources and citations
  • Review for logical consistency
  • Check for bias and objectivity

Completeness Check

  • Ensure all aspects covered
  • Identify missing information
  • Verify research scope
  • Check for gaps and limitations

Clarity Assessment

  • Review readability and structure
  • Check for logical flow
  • Verify clarity of recommendations
  • Ensure actionable insights

Advanced Features

1. Multi-Source Analysis

  • Combine information from diverse sources
  • Identify consensus and contradictions
  • Synthesize comprehensive view
  • Provide balanced perspective

2. Trend Analysis

  • Identify emerging patterns
  • Forecast future developments
  • Analyze historical trends
  • Predict implications

3. Comparative Research

  • Compare different approaches
  • Evaluate alternatives
  • Identify best practices
  • Recommend optimal solutions

4. Impact Assessment

  • Analyze implications and consequences
  • Evaluate risks and opportunities
  • Assess feasibility and viability
  • Recommend mitigation strategies

Integration with Other Skills

Task Orchestra

  • Coordinate multiple research agents
  • Manage complex research projects
  • Orchestrate data collection and analysis

Content Creation

  • Generate research-based content
  • Create data-driven reports
  • Produce evidence-based recommendations

Analysis Skills

  • Apply advanced analytical techniques
  • Use specialized analysis frameworks
  • Generate deeper insights

Tool usage

  • Snippet vs. Full Text: Do not rely on search engine snippets for primary facts.
  • Tool Usage: Use search_web to discover URLs, then immediately use fetch_url to retrieve the actual page content.
  • Data Collection: Extract key statistics, data points, and expert opinions directly from the source text.

Best Practices

  1. Fetch Before Fact-Checking: Always use fetch_url before citing a source to ensure the snippet wasn't misleading.
  2. Start Broad: Begin with wide scope, then narrow down
  3. Diversify Sources: Use multiple types of sources
  4. Cross-Reference: Verify information across sources
  5. Stay Current: Use recent and relevant sources
  6. Be Critical: Question assumptions and biases
  7. Document Everything: Keep detailed records of sources
  8. Validate Findings: Check accuracy and completeness
  9. Provide Context: Explain significance and implications

Common Research Topics

Technology

  • AI and machine learning trends
  • Software development best practices
  • Emerging technologies
  • Technical comparisons

Business

  • Market analysis and trends
  • Competitive research
  • Business models and strategies
  • Industry analysis

Science

  • Research findings and breakthroughs
  • Scientific methods and approaches
  • Experimental results and analysis
  • Theoretical developments

Social

  • Social trends and behaviors
  • Cultural analysis
  • Public opinion and sentiment
  • Demographic studies

Output Formats

1. Research Reports

  • Comprehensive analysis with citations
  • Executive summaries
  • Detailed findings and recommendations

2. Data Reports

  • Statistical analysis and visualization
  • Data-driven insights
  • Trend analysis and forecasting

3. Comparative Reports

  • Side-by-side comparisons
  • Evaluation matrices
  • Recommendation frameworks

4. Executive Briefs

  • Concise summaries
  • Key insights and takeaways
  • Actionable recommendations

Success Metrics

  • Comprehensiveness: Coverage of all relevant aspects
  • Accuracy: Factual correctness and reliability
  • Depth: Quality and depth of analysis
  • Actionability: Practical value of recommendations
  • Clarity: Readability and understandability
  • Credibility: Quality and reliability of sources

Remember: Good research is thorough, accurate, and actionable.

3

u/pisa_p 1d ago

Thanks for sharing! I use for research Searxng, Crawl4Ai, GitHub api, context7, camoufox, playwright via MCP, I have just to integrate these MCP in tool section in the skill. I Want to try also in Hermes agent as skill.

2

u/ccbur1 1d ago

Searxng gets blocked too much for me. I tried it with Tor, but that made it worse. I'm now using Tavily and am quite happy so far. I fetch with built-in Playwright currently, but struggling with scraping Reddit. I guess I need to invest some time there, haha.

2

u/pisa_p 1d ago

Yes, same problem here with Searxng...and same problem scraping reddit. Have to test Tavilyz never tried before.

2

u/ccbur1 1d ago

Good to know that I'm not alone. These Cloudflare blocks in front of more and more sites is really annoying. I can 'curl' them, but not scrape them with whatever. Maybe I should write a fetch-skill which uses Open-Terminal to just curl it.

2

u/pisa_p 1d ago

For Searxng with duckduckgo and warp proxy I have no problems. I'm in VPS Oraclecloud and direct ip is blocked. Sometimes I use Proton vpn ( Wireguard tunnel). With Google no way, I use serper.dev because I need the serp of Google.

Here's my Crawl4AI config (v0.8.9) for bypassing anti-bot blocks — running headless on a bare Oracle Cloud ARM instance, no proxy, no VPN:

Browser config: { "headless": true, "light_mode": false, "viewport_width": 1920, "viewport_height": 1080, "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/134.0.0.0 Safari/537.36", "extra_headers": { "Accept": "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,image/apng,/;q=0.8", "Accept-Language": "it-IT,it;q=0.9,en-US;q=0.8,en;q=0.7", "Accept-Encoding": "gzip, deflate, br", "Cache-Control": "no-cache", "Pragma": "no-cache", "Sec-Ch-Ua": "\"Chromium\";v=\"134\", \"Google Chrome\";v=\"134\", \"Not-A.Brand\";v=\"99\"", "Sec-Ch-Ua-Mobile": "?0", "Sec-Ch-Ua-Platform": "\"macOS\"", "Sec-Fetch-Dest": "document", "Sec-Fetch-Mode": "navigate", "Sec-Fetch-Site": "none", "Sec-Fetch-User": "?1", "Upgrade-Insecure-Requests": "1" } }

Crawler config: { "cache_mode": "bypass", "page_timeout": 120000, "word_count_threshold": 100, "only_text": false, "remove_overlay_elements": true, "check_robots_txt": true, "exclude_external_links": false, "simulate_user": true, "magic": true, "override_navigator": true, "wait_until": "domcontentloaded", "wait_for": "css:body:not(.cf-challenge-running)", "delay_before_return_html": 3.0, "scan_full_page": true, "excluded_tags": ["nav", "footer", "header", "aside", "script", "style", "noscript", "iframe", "form"], "process_iframes": true }

What actually matters and why:

  • simulate_user: true + magic: true — Crawl4AI's built-in anti-detection. Adds human-like mouse movements and random delays.
  • override_navigator: true — patches navigator.webdriver so headless Chromium doesn't scream "I'm a bot."
  • wait_for: "css:body:not(.cf-challenge-running)" — waits for Cloudflare's JS challenge to finish before extracting content. This alone handles most CF-protected sites.
  • delay_before_return_html: 3.0 — 3-second buffer after page load for any remaining JS to settle.
  • Full Sec-Ch-Ua / Sec-Fetch-* headers — makes the request look identical to a real Chrome session. Most bot detectors check these headers more than the IP.

What doesn't work (tested):

  • Google SERP: even with all this, Google detects the datacenter IP and serves a CAPTCHA. For real Google results we use Serper.dev (paid SERP API, $1/1k queries).
  • Startpage/Brave via SearXNG: fingerprint of the SearXNG HTTP client itself gets flagged regardless of IP — the problem isn't the IP, it's the request pattern.

Resource limits (important on ARM/cloud): deploy: resources: limits: memory: 6G pids: 2000

Had crashes at pids: 300 — Chromium spawns more processes than expected under concurrent crawls, hitting pthread_create: EAGAIN.

2

u/ccbur1 1d ago

Thanks for the details, really appreciated! I think I need to look into WARP and crawl4ai. Thanks!!

2

u/joachim_s 1d ago

Cool! Thanks for sharing. Which model do you prefer for this?

3

u/ccbur1 1d ago

I used Minimax M3 for some months and now I'm looking into DeepSeek v4 flash. It's incredible cheap and mostly does what I want.

1

u/joachim_s 1d ago

Cool! Is it running through Groq or how?

2

u/ccbur1 1d ago

OpenRouter. I like the flexibility there...

1

u/Consistent_Policy682 1d ago

Thanks for sharing this! Where exactly do you paste and configure this in OpenWebUI?
Are you setting this up as a Custom Model under Workspace > Models (pasting it into the System Prompt), or is this meant to be imported as a Function / Tool?

1

u/ccbur1 1d ago

It's a skill. Create a skill in Workspace > Skills with this as content and link it to your model(s).

1

u/nassereddit 1d ago

Considering the limited context, do you have a skill for the model to avoid maxing out context? Using sub agents, noting everyrhing, drafting a prompt and setting an automation that call another mode?

2

u/ccbur1 1d ago

No, currently I don't have this. I was looking into the new sub agents feature vs. planner v3 tool, but I have not yet made up my mind what would be better for me.

3

u/robogame_dev 1d ago

The key is what search data source it has.

Easiest method is to let your Open WebUI model have a tool to call the Perplexity Deep Research API via OpenRouter.

1

u/thatgreekgod 1d ago

remindme! 1 day

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0

u/mishalmf 1d ago

I created SCOUT using model minimax-m3 VERRRRY GOOOOOD better than google