autoresearch_plan

EXECUTE IMMEDIATELY.

Parse Arguments

Extract from $ARGUMENTS:

• Goal: — text after keyword, or full $ARGUMENTS if no keyword
• --chain <targets> — comma-separated downstream commands
• --<subcommand> — chain shorthand

Remaining text = goal description.

Setup (if Goal missing)

question (single batch): Q1 (Goal): "What do you want to achieve?" — open text Q2 (Type): "What kind of goal?" — improve a metric, fix errors, audit security, explore edge cases, document code, ship something If Goal provided → skip.

Phase 1: Analyze Goal

Parse the goal to determine:

• Is it measurable? (metric-driven vs subjective)
• What's the natural scope? (files, modules, entire codebase)
• What subcommand fits best? (core loop, fix, debug, security, etc.)

Phase 2: Derive Scope

1. Scan project structure
2. Identify files relevant to the goal
3. Propose file globs
4. If ambiguous → ask user to confirm

Phase 3: Derive Metric + Direction

For metric-driven goals:

• Identify what to measure (test coverage, error count, bundle size, latency, etc.)
• Determine direction: higher_is_better or lower_is_better
• Propose metric name and description

For performance, latency, throughput, runtime, CPU, memory, allocations, binary size, power, energy, bandwidth, or compute-cost goals, read references/behavior-preserving-optimization.md in the autoresearch skill directory. Derive a behavior/resource Guard and a held-out confirmation plan separately from the headline metric; do not let the optimized metric certify itself.

For subjective goals:

• Suggest proxy metrics where possible
• Or recommend /autoresearch_reason for non-measurable goals

Phase 4: Derive Verify Command

1. Identify how to extract the metric as a number from a shell command
2. Propose Verify command (e.g., npm test -- --coverage | grep "All files" | awk '{print $10}')
3. Safety screen: check proposed command for rm -rf, fork bombs, curl|sh, credentials
4. Dry-run the Verify command → confirm it outputs a valid number
5. If dry-run fails → adjust command and retry