search-wikipedia

Look up a Wikipedia topic and save the article summary as a markdown file.

3|3|Updated Apr 8, 2026
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/PioneerAIAcademy/cowork-genealogy --skill search-wikipedia-pioneeraiacademy
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent▼
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: search-wikipedia
Source: https://github.com/PioneerAIAcademy/cowork-genealogy/tree/main/packages/engine/plugin/skills/search-wikipedia
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/PioneerAIAcademy/cowork-genealogy --skill search-wikipedia-pioneeraiacademy

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

What problem does it solve? Genealogy researchers often need general background on a person, place, or historical event, but manually copying Wikipedia content into project notes is repetitive and error-prone. This Skill fetches the article summary and saves it as a consistently formatted markdown file in the working folder. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Wikipedia Search: Calls the wikipedia_search MCP tool to retrieve the article title, extract, and source URL for a given topic. - Template-Based Output: Fills a markdown template with the exact extract from the tool response, without paraphrasing or editorializing. - Deterministic File Naming: Converts article titles into ASCII-safe slugs (e.g., "Württemberg" becomes wurttemberg.md) for clean, portable filenames. - Scope Guarding: Declines requests that belong to other skills, such as FamilySearch Research Wiki lookups, locality records guides, or narrative historical context. - Use Case: While researching an ancestor from Schuylkill County, ask for a Wikipedia summary of the county and get a saved schuylkill-county-pennsylvania.md file with the verbatim extract and source link. ## Quick Start Look up Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania on Wikipedia and save the summary to my working folder.

Frequently Asked Questions about search-wikipedia

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I save a Wikipedia article summary to a file?▼

Ask for a Wikipedia lookup on a specific topic, person, place, or event. The skill calls the wikipedia_search MCP tool, fills a markdown template with the verbatim extract and source URL, and writes the result as a slug-named .md file in your working folder.

What is the difference between Wikipedia and the FamilySearch Research Wiki for genealogy?▼

Wikipedia provides general-encyclopedia background on topics, people, places, and events, while the FamilySearch Research Wiki contains genealogy-specific research guidance. This skill handles Wikipedia only; FamilySearch wiki requests are routed to the search-familysearch-wiki skill.

When should I not use a Wikipedia lookup for genealogy research?▼

Do not use it for narrative genealogical history like migration patterns or boundary changes, which belongs to historical-context, or for locality records-availability guides, which belongs to locality-guide. It is only for single encyclopedia article summaries.

How are Wikipedia summary filenames generated?▼

Filenames are slugs built from the article title: accented characters are transliterated to ASCII, the title is lowercased, runs of non-alphanumeric characters become single hyphens, and edge hyphens are trimmed. For example, "O'Brien (surname)" becomes o-brien-surname.md.

Does the Wikipedia summary get paraphrased or shortened?▼

No. The skill copies the extract from the wikipedia_search tool response verbatim into the template. It does not paraphrase, summarize, truncate, or editorialize the article content.