Before a client engagement I used to spend 2–3 hours pulling together market research — company backgrounds, sector trends, competitor moves. Most of it was the same structure every time, just different inputs.

A few months ago, I built a system in Cursor and GitHub that does that in 10 minutes. Here's exactly how it works — and how you can build it this to begin using in your next research engagement

The setup: a /research folder in GitHub with reusable markdown templates for market research, competitor analysis, and client briefings. Each template has variables Claude fills in on demand. This allows you to automate the workflow and start saving time

Step 1 —Create a /research folder in GitHub with markdown templates — one per research type (market overview, competitor scan, client brief)

Step 2 — Open the folder in Cursor — use @ file references to load any template instantly

Step 3 — Tell Cursor: "Use this template and research [COMPANY/SECTOR] using public information" — Claude fills in the variables

Step 4 — Review, refine, save back to GitHub — your knowledge base gets smarter with every engagement

Next time you need similar research — it's already half done. Pull the last version and update it.

Ease of setup: 7/10 — needs one hour to configure but runs itself after that
Time saved: 2–3 hours per engagement
Cost: Free tier on all three tools to start

My experience: This is one of my favorite shortcuts for a consultant. When I first started, I asked Claude to help me step by step to connect GitHub and Cursor as to ensure I don’t miss any steps. Then I asked Claude to simulate a research scenario so we can test and refine the templates.

Yes, this one took about an hour to set up and maybe another hour to refine. But I would spend those 2 hours in the past anyways doing the research. Now I have a quick way to get relevant information and each time a get a new series of templates that I can leverage for benchmarking, extracting 10k information, etc.

You are a senior strategy research analyst. Using only publicly available information, complete this research brief for the following:

Company / Sector: [NAME]
Research type: [market overview / competitor scan / client brief]

Follow the template structure exactly. For each section:

Keep the tone professional and direct.
Length: match the template — no shorter, no longer.

[@ your template file here]

GitHub Copilot now reads your entire codebase as context — GitHub's latest update means Copilot understands your full project structure, not just the file you're in. For knowledge base workflows this is significant — your research templates become part of the AI's working memory.

Why it matters: your Cursor + GitHub setup just got more powerful without changing anything.

McKinsey launches internal AI platform for all 40,000 consultants — Every McKinsey consultant now has access to a firm-wide AI research tool built on proprietary client data and methodology.

Why it matters: your clients' other advisors are using firm-grade AI. Your personal setup needs to match that output quality.

Perplexity launches deep research for professionals — Perplexity's new Pro feature runs multi-step research queries across live web sources and compiles cited reports automatically.

Why it matters: pair this with your Cursor templates and you have a research pipeline that rivals a junior analyst team.

Create one research template this week. Open Cursor, create a new file called market-overview.md and build a simple structure: Company background, Market size, Key competitors, Recent developments, Strategic implications. Save it to a GitHub repo called /research. Next time you need a client brief, open it in Cursor and run the prompt above. First setup: 45 minutes. Every use after: 10 minutes.

Going further: add a competitor-scan.md and client-brief.md template. You now have a personal research system that compounds with every engagement.

Pro-Tip: you can ask Claude to help you along each step to ensure you set up a structure that works for your