Parallel Web Systems API

Overview

This skill provides access to Parallel Web Systems APIs for web search, deep research, and content extraction. It is the primary tool for all web-related operations in the scientific writer workflow.

Primary interface: Parallel Chat API (OpenAI-compatible) for search and research. Secondary interface: Extract API for URL verification and special cases only.

API Documentation: https://docs.parallel.ai API Key: https://platform.parallel.ai Environment Variable: PARALLEL_API_KEY

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill for ALL of the following:

• Web Search: Any query that requires searching the internet for information
• Deep Research: Comprehensive research reports on any topic
• Market Research: Industry analysis, competitive intelligence, market data
• Current Events: News, recent developments, announcements
• Technical Information: Documentation, specifications, product details
• Statistical Data: Market sizes, growth rates, industry figures
• General Information: Company profiles, facts, comparisons

Use Extract API only for:

• Citation verification (confirming a specific URL's content)
• Special cases where you need raw content from a known URL

Do NOT use this skill for:

• Academic-specific paper searches (use research-lookup which routes to Perplexity for purely academic queries)
• Google Scholar / PubMed database searches (use citation-management skill)

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Two Capabilities

1. Web Search (search command)

Search the web via the Parallel Chat API (base model) and get a synthesized summary with cited sources.

Best for: General web searches, current events, fact-finding, technical lookups, news, market data.

# Basic search
python scripts/parallel_web.py search "latest advances in quantum computing 2025"