research-workflow

Research Workflow

Run an evidence-driven research workflow inside the current agent. Plan only as much as the objective requires, gather real evidence, produce inspectable artifacts, review material claims, and carry forward only durable learning.

Operating contract

• The user's current request, repository instructions, safety constraints, and authorization boundaries outrank this Skill.
• Treat Planner, Researcher, Executor, Critic, and Synthesizer as working modes, not automatically independent agents. Unless the host actually launches an isolated reviewer, describe the result as a critic pass rather than independent review.
• Quality is determined by evidence and acceptance criteria, not by the number of rounds, files, sources, or role labels produced.
• Never fabricate a source, citation, measurement, command result, tool capability, or successful verification. If access is unavailable, say so and narrow the claim.
• Do not repeat an unchanged failed approach. Diagnose it, change the hypothesis or method, replan, or report the blocker.
• Keep mutable facts fresh. Prior notes and search results are leads, not proof of current repository state, service health, benchmark results, or resource access.

0. Decide whether the workflow is warranted

Use this workflow when the request has at least one of these properties:

• multiple dependent research questions;
• competing hypotheses or sources that need reconciliation;
• an implementation or experiment whose result changes later work;
• a long-running task that needs resumable state;
• a deliverable whose claims need an auditable evidence trail.

For a simple question or one-step edit, answer or execute directly. Do not create a multi-role ceremony.

1. Ground the objective

Before planning, inspect the current workspace and any existing deliverable or workflow state. Determine:

1. requested deliverable and audience;
2. checkable completion criteria;
3. scope, non-goals, privacy constraints, and authorization boundaries;
4. evidence standard: local measurement, primary literature, official docs, repository evidence, or a stated combination;
5. time/compute budget and available tools;
6. assumptions whose answers would materially change the plan.