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The /influence command maps an artist’s musical connections by checking the influence cache, running discovery if needed, and rendering an InfluenceChain component — a narrative timeline with a hero banner, tabbed connection cards, and cited sources.

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Syntax

/influence [artist]
ParameterDescription
artistArtist name to map influences for

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Example

/influence J Dilla

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What it produces

The agent outputs an InfluenceChain component with:
  • A hero banner for the subject artist
  • 6–12 connection cards sorted by weight (strongest connections first)
  • Tabs for each connection showing context, sonic elements, key works, and sources
  • Source citations with direct links from the research

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How connections are discovered

The agent runs in three phases:
1

Cache check

Calls lookup_influences to check whether connections have been cached from a previous research session. If 5 or more connections are found, the agent skips to the enrich phase.
2

Discovery (if cache is thin)

Runs a Perplexity web search for [artist] musical influences collaborations discography to get a comprehensive overview in one call. If more signal is needed, searches review co-mentions — when two artists are mentioned together in a review, that co-occurrence is treated as an influence signal.
3

Enrichment

Calls research_influences_batch with the top 3–5 connection names. This fires parallel Perplexity calls and returns all results in one response. Results are then saved back to the cache.

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Connection fields

Each connection in the InfluenceChain includes:
FieldDescription
nameConnected artist name
weightConnection strength (0–1), used for sort order
relationshipinfluenced by, collaborated with, or co_mention
contextEnriched paragraph or summary from research
pullQuoteDirect quote if found (optional)
pullQuoteAttributionArtist Name, Publication, Year (optional)
sonicElementsArray of sonic or stylistic qualities shared between artists
keyWorksAlbum-to-album reference showing the connection in the catalog
sourcesArray of { name, url, snippet, date } from research

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Direction convention

Digcrate uses the Badillo-Goicoechea 2025 direction convention for edges in the influence graph:
  • from = INFLUENCER, to = INFLUENCED
  • If a review of artist B mentions artist A → edge points A → B
  • influenced by for directional influence
  • collaborated with for production or co-creation
  • co_mention for same-review co-occurrence without a clear directional signal
Artist images are auto-fetched from Spotify by the InfluenceChain component. The agent does not need to look up artwork — passing image URLs is not required.

/artist

Full artist profile including the Connections tab

/story

Narrative deep dive on an artist, genre, or movement

/track

Track-level research including credits and samples
Pro users benefit from influence caching — previously discovered connections load instantly and skip the discovery phase entirely.