A research workflow for Aha Loop development stories. It investigates unfamiliar libraries, technical approaches, and implementation choices, then records the findings for later work.

Use it before building a story that names unfamiliar dependencies or architectural choices, to produce a research report and update the project's knowledge base.

It reduces the risk of making implementation decisions without understanding the relevant tools, documentation, or alternatives.

How YougLin-dev/Aha-Loop configures Claude Code and Codex

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to YougLin-dev/Aha-Loop. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YougLin-dev/Aha-Loop/main/.agents/skills/research/SKILL.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/YougLin-dev/Aha-Loop

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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/skills/youglin-dev/aha-loop/research/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/youglin-dev/aha-loop/research)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/youglin-dev/aha-loop/research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/youglin-dev/aha-loop/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/skills/youglin-dev/aha-loop/research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/youglin-dev/aha-loop/research.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 39 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 2,055 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 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	$0.00039	$0.02055
Opus 5.5	$0.00016	$0.00822
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00008	$0.00411
Haiku 4.5	$0.00004	$0.00205

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 550a49da6e61, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

research scanned grade A 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 2mo 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.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -s "https://crates.io/api/v1/crates/tokio" | jq '.crate.max_stable_version'

.agents/skills/research/SKILL.md · 340 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 340 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Deep Research Skill

Conduct thorough technical research before implementation to ensure high-quality, informed decisions.

Workspace Mode Note

When running in workspace mode, all paths are relative to .aha-loop/ directory:

Research reports: .aha-loop/research/ (not scripts/aha-loop/research/)
Knowledge base: .aha-loop/knowledge/ (not knowledge/)
Vendor directory: .aha-loop/.vendor/ (not .vendor/)

The orchestrator will provide the actual paths in the prompt context.

The Job

Identify research topics from the current story's researchTopics field
Fetch third-party library source code if needed
Search documentation and best practices
Analyze and compare alternatives
Generate a research report
Update knowledge base with findings
Mark researchCompleted: true in prd.json

Research Process

Step 1: Identify What to Research

Read the current story from prd.json and extract:

researchTopics - explicit topics to investigate
Dependencies mentioned in acceptance criteria
Patterns referenced in the description

Also check:

Previous story's learnings field for follow-up research needs
knowledge/project/gotchas.md for related known issues

Step 2: Fetch Library Source Code (If Needed)

For any third-party library research, fetch the source:

# Fetch specific library
./scripts/aha-loop/fetch-source.sh rust tokio 1.35.0

# Or fetch all project dependencies
./scripts/aha-loop/fetch-source.sh --from-deps

After fetching, the source will be at .vendor/<ecosystem>/<name>-<version>/

Library Version Selection

Always Prefer Latest Stable Versions

When researching or recommending libraries, always check for and prefer the latest stable version unless there's a specific compatibility reason not to.

Version Research Process

Query the package registry for latest version:

# Rust (crates.io)
curl -s "https://crates.io/api/v1/crates/tokio" | jq '.crate.max_stable_version'

# Or use cargo
cargo search tokio --limit 1

# Node.js (npm)
npm view react version

# Python (PyPI)
pip index versions requests 2>/dev/null | head -1

Read the full file on GitHub · 340 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.

2mo ago First seen · 340 lines · 39 tokens per session scan A 550a49da6e61

Subscribe to this mod's changes

research is a skill published in the GitHub repository YougLin-dev/Aha-Loop (178 stars, last pushed 9mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 39 tokens to every session and 2,055 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Research

research next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
researchYougLin-dev/Aha-Loop	Skill	178	9mo ago	MIT	A	39	Claude Code, Codex
imagegenopenai/codex	Skill	133k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	113	Codex
playwright-climicrosoft/playwright	Skill	99k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	19	Claude Code
local-ai-agentsmicrosoft/ai-agents-for-beginners	Skill	79k	4d ago	MIT	A	200	Claude Code, Codex
systematic-debuggingobra/superpowers	Skill	313k	3d ago	MIT	A	21	Claude Code
next-cache-components-adoptionvercel/next.js	Skill	143k	today	MIT	A	95	Claude Code
next-partial-prefetching-adoptionvercel/next.js	Skill	143k	today	MIT	A	103	Claude Code

Aha-Loop: Skill for Claude Code