---
id: "nr-useful-agent-systems-depend-on-retrieval-surfaces-tailored-to-the-work-bbafa4"
slug: "useful-agent-systems-depend-on-retrieval-surfaces-tailored-to-the-work-bbafa4"
type: "raw_signal"
title: "Useful agent systems depend on retrieval surfaces tailored to the work"
description: "Firecrawl’s life-science index adds a specialized corpus of papers, while Mintlify Index offers a searchable documentation surface across more than 200,000 libraries and APIs."
observed_at: "2026-09-06"
record_date: "2026-09-06"
date_kind: "observed_at"
novelty: "notable"
source_platform: "newruntime.com"
topics: ["retrieval"]
entities: []
related_patterns: []
source_url: "https://docs.firecrawl.dev/features/research"
source_urls: ["https://docs.firecrawl.dev/features/research","https://www.mintlify.com/search-index"]
why_it_matters: "Firecrawl’s life-science index adds a specialized corpus of papers, while Mintlify Index offers a searchable documentation surface across more than 200,000 libraries and APIs. Together, they show how agents can be grounded through domain- or task-specific retrieval rather than a single general-purpose knowledge source."
verification_level: "source-linked"
signal_type: "synthesis"
synthesis_of: [{"slug":"firecrawl-adds-41-million-life-science-papers-to-its-research-index","title":"Firecrawl Adds 41 Million Life-Science Papers to Its Research Index","url":"https://newruntime.com/posts/firecrawl-adds-41-million-life-science-papers-to-its-research-index/"},{"slug":"mintlify-exposes-a-search-index-for-developer-documentation","title":"Mintlify Index offers one retrieval surface for developer documentation","url":"https://newruntime.com/posts/mintlify-exposes-a-search-index-for-developer-documentation/"}]
schema_version: "newruntime-agent-readable-v0.2"
stable_id: "signal:useful-agent-systems-depend-on-retrieval-surfaces-tailored-to-the-work-bbafa4"
retrieval_nugget: "Firecrawl’s life-science index adds a specialized corpus of papers, while Mintlify Index offers a searchable documentation surface across more than 200,000 libraries and APIs. Together, they show how agents can be grounded through domain- or task-specific retrieval rather than a single general-purpose knowledge source."
status: "published"
visuals: []
editor: {"role":"editor","name":"Andrey Reshetnikov","profile":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md","profile_json":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json","same_as":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshetnikov1/","https://t.me/lapetuse"]}
routes: {"html":"https://newruntime.com/signals/useful-agent-systems-depend-on-retrieval-surfaces-tailored-to-the-work-bbafa4/","markdown":"https://newruntime.com/signals/useful-agent-systems-depend-on-retrieval-surfaces-tailored-to-the-work-bbafa4.md","json":"https://newruntime.com/signals/useful-agent-systems-depend-on-retrieval-surfaces-tailored-to-the-work-bbafa4.json"}
---

# Useful agent systems depend on retrieval surfaces tailored to the work

## Retrieval answer

Firecrawl’s life-science index adds a specialized corpus of papers, while Mintlify Index offers a searchable documentation surface across more than 200,000 libraries and APIs. Together, they show how agents can be grounded through domain- or task-specific retrieval rather than a single general-purpose knowledge source.

Firecrawl’s life-science index adds a specialized corpus of papers, while Mintlify Index offers a searchable documentation surface across more than 200,000 libraries and APIs. Together, they show how agents can be grounded through domain- or task-specific retrieval rather than a single general-purpose knowledge source.

From the Field Notes:

- [Firecrawl Adds 41 Million Life-Science Papers to Its Research Index](https://newruntime.com/posts/firecrawl-adds-41-million-life-science-papers-to-its-research-index/) (2026-09-06)
- [Mintlify Index offers one retrieval surface for developer documentation](https://newruntime.com/posts/mintlify-exposes-a-search-index-for-developer-documentation/) (2026-09-06)

Editor: [Andrey Reshetnikov](https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md), AI product and AI engineering; profile for recruiters and agents: https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json

## Continue in the graph

Next records for an agent, linked to their Markdown twins. Replace `.md` with `.json` for structured fields, including `next_reads`.

- topic hub: [Retrieval](https://newruntime.com/topics/retrieval.md): Explore the retrieval topic hub.
- collection: [Raw Signals](https://newruntime.com/signals.json): Open every source-linked raw signal.
- collection: [Source Ledger](https://newruntime.com/source-ledger.json): Inspect the public source evidence graph.
- whole graph: [discovery graph](https://newruntime.com/discovery-graph.json) (typed nodes and edges) and [site index](https://newruntime.com/site-index.md)