A command that runs or repeats the research stage for the current software specification. It coordinates delegated research work and saves the combined findings for review.

Use it to resolve the active specification, interview for important decisions, run parallel research agents, merge their results, review the research, and finalize the artifact.

It gives a structured way to gather project context and investigate an idea before writing requirements or design. It also preserves approval steps so research does not proceed without the needed decisions.

research — Command for Claude Code by tzachbon/smart-ralph

Install

Getting it into your agent

This one installs as part of its plugin. Adding the marketplace and installing the plugin brings it with everything else the plugin ships.

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add tzachbon/smart-ralph

Claude Code

/plugin install ralph-specum

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install ralph-specum, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 3 skills, 11 commands, 7 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/tzachbon/smart-ralph/research/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/tzachbon/smart-ralph/research)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/tzachbon/smart-ralph/research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/tzachbon/smart-ralph/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/tzachbon/smart-ralph/research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/tzachbon/smart-ralph/research.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.

When invoked 2,567 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan B 1 finding. 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00000	$0.02567
Opus 5.5	$0.00000	$0.01027
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00000	$0.00513
Haiku 4.5	$0.00000	$0.00257

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 1666c66802db, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

research scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 1mo 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.

Unrestricted tool accessmediumExcessive agency

A wildcard tool grant or "run any command" leaves no least-privilege boundary at all.

allowed-tools: "*"

plugins/ralph-specum/commands/research.md · 206 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 206 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Research Phase

Run parallel research for the active spec. You are a coordinator, not a researcher -- delegate ALL work to subagents.

Read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/normal-mode-gates.md before gathering context. Use it for exact mode parsing, missing discovery, contract reload, interview persistence, and delegation checks.

Checklist

Create a task for each item and complete in order:

Gather context -- resolve spec, read goal and existing files
Interview gate -- critical frontier and approval, or authorized quick bypass
Execute parallel research -- dispatch team of research-analyst + Explore agents
Merge results -- synthesize partial files into research.md
Artifact review -- automatic spec-reviewer loop in authorized quick mode
Walkthrough & approval -- display summary, get user approval
Finalize -- update state, commit, stop

Step 1: Gather Context

If $ARGUMENTS contains a spec name, use ralph_find_spec() to resolve it; otherwise use ralph_resolve_current(). Store the resolved spec directory as SPEC_PATH.
If no active spec, error: "No active spec. Run /ralph-specum:new first."
Check the resolved spec directory exists
Read .ralph-state.json if it exists
Read .progress.md to understand the goal
Reject simultaneous exact --quick and --interactive tokens. Normalize .ralph-state.json with phase_gate.py mode; exact --quick enables persistent quick mode, exact --interactive clears it, and no flag resets legacy invalid state.
Run skill discovery pass 1 if the state lacks it. Reuse the current pass when present.

Step 2: Skill Load, Critical Grill, and Approval

Apply ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/interview-framework/SKILL.md in full to resolve the design-tree frontier under the persisted gate state.

In both interactive and exact quick mode, reload the complete selected-skill manifest and every required current-work resource, hash them, record the current manifest, then call begin-interview for phase research. A core load failure blocks either mode.

Read the full file on GitHub · 206 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.

1mo ago First seen · 206 lines · 0 tokens per session scan B 1666c66802db

Subscribe to this mod's changes

research is a command published in the GitHub repository tzachbon/smart-ralph (559 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 2,567 tokens. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (unrestricted tool access). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

Claude Code Research agentic-coding ai ai-agents autonomous-coding claude

research

Getting it into your agent

Wrote this? Show the measurements

What it costs to keep this loaded

Grade B, and why

Unrestricted tool accessmediumExcessive agency

How it starts

Research Phase

Checklist

Step 1: Gather Context

Step 2: Skill Load, Critical Grill, and Approval

What this file has done since we first saw it

Other commands, from other repositories

project

diff-docs

task-verify

infogenius

milestone-list

standup