research

research is a command for Claude Code from oborchers/fractional-cto. It costs 25 tokens per session (1,852 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command for structured research that searches the web in parallel, checks sources, and combines the results into a cited document.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate a topic, refine the research question, verify sources, and create a well-sourced report.
Why use it?
It provides a defined process for narrowing broad questions, checking claims, and organizing research evidence.

Command for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: argument-hint in frontmatter. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths; mentions subagents; names the AskUserQuestion tool.

Part of the deep-research plugin — 5 skills, 1 command, 3 agents shipped together

Good fit Use it to investigate a topic, refine the research question, verify sources, and create a well-sourced report.

Compare 6 commands from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/oborchers/fractional-cto/research
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/oborchers/fractional-cto

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install deep-research, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 5 skills, 1 command, 3 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for research

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/oborchers/fractional-cto/research/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/oborchers/fractional-cto/research)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/oborchers/fractional-cto/research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/oborchers/fractional-cto/research/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for research

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/oborchers/fractional-cto/research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/oborchers/fractional-cto/research.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 25 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,852 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00025 $0.01852
Opus 5 $0.00013 $0.00926
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00370
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00185

Measured 9d ago against content hash 5caa1474cae6, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

research scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

deep-research/commands/research.md · 173 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 173 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Conduct structured deep research on the given topic using the deep-research skills (research-methodology, source-evaluation, hallucination-prevention, synthesis-and-reporting).

Follow this process:

Step 1: Topic Capture

If no research topic was provided as an argument, ask the user to describe what they want to research.

Step 2: Query Analysis and Scope Refinement

Analyze the research query for complexity and scope. If the query is vague or overly broad, use AskUserQuestion to ask 2-3 clarifying questions that narrow the scope — modeling how Claude's desktop deep research feature refines queries before committing resources.

Example clarifying questions:

  • "What specific aspect of [topic] matters most for your use case?"
  • "Are you looking for [aspect A] or [aspect B], or both?"
  • "Should this focus on [domain/timeframe/technology]?"

Once scope is clear, restate the refined research question and present it to the user.

Step 3: Confirm or Refine

Use AskUserQuestion to ask the user how to proceed:

  • Start research — proceed with the stated research question
  • Refine the question — iterate on the scope before committing

If the user chooses to refine, they provide adjustments. Return to Step 2. This loop can repeat until the user is satisfied.

Step 4: Decomposition and Research Plan

Analyze the refined query and determine a decomposition strategy. The number and nature of subtopics emerges from the query — do not prescribe a fixed count. Consult the research-methodology skill for decomposition strategy selection.

Present the research plan to the user:

  • The subtopics to investigate
  • Which will be researched in parallel
  • The output location

Use AskUserQuestion to ask:

  • Proceed with this plan — start spawning research workers
  • Adjust the plan — modify subtopics before starting

Step 5: Output Location

Use AskUserQuestion to determine where the output should be written:

  • Suggest a default path based on the working directory (e.g., ./deep-research:research/[topic-slug]/)
  • Let the user specify a custom path

Read the full file on GitHub · 173 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 173 lines · 25 tokens per session scan A 5caa1474cae6

Subscribe to this mod's changes

research is a command published in the GitHub repository oborchers/fractional-cto (29 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 25 tokens to every session and 1,852 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.