Research Brief Generation with Claude Code: MCP Tool Boundary

A production playbook for research brief generation in cross-industry operations using Claude Code: mcp tool boundary, run-scoped inputs, logs, typed results, and artifacts.

Audience: Analyst and strategy teams

The problem

Analyst and strategy teams need research brief generation to run repeatedly against source PDFs, web captures, notes, and citation rules. In cross-industry operations, the pain is not one good answer; it is repeatability, auditability, exception handling, and evidence that survives handoff.

Implementation path

Expose only the MCP tools needed for research brief generation, validate tool arguments, keep credentials in the owning service, and log each call outside the sandbox.

Tradeoffs and failure modes

Narrow tool boundaries reduce agent flexibility, but make the integration reviewable and supportable. For research brief generation, the practical test is whether a second run can be debugged, retried, and consumed by a product without reading the raw agent transcript.

Tool policy

tool: research-brief-generation_lookup
agent: Claude Code
input_scope: /skill/.argo/inputs
credential_owner: broker
log_arguments: true
network_policy: allowlisted

Run this on Argo