Skill Formal Research

Formal Research Skill

Thin wrapper that delegates formal reasoning research to formal-research-agent subagent.

IMPORTANT: This skill implements the skill-internal postflight pattern. After the subagent returns, this skill handles all postflight operations (status update, artifact linking, git commit) before returning.

Context References

Reference (do not load eagerly):

• Path: .claude/context/formats/return-metadata-file.md - Metadata file schema

Note: This skill is a thin wrapper with internal postflight. Context is loaded by the delegated agent.

Trigger Conditions

This skill activates when:

• Task type is "formal"
• Research requires cross-domain coordination (logic + math, math + physics, etc.)
• Domain context files are needed from multiple formal domains

Execution Flow

Stage 1: Input Validation

Validate required inputs:

• task_number - Must be provided and exist in state.json
• focus_prompt - Optional focus for research direction

Stage 2: Preflight Status Update

Update task status to "researching" BEFORE invoking subagent.

Stage 3: Create Postflight Marker

Create the marker file to prevent premature termination.

Stage 4: Prepare Delegation Context

Prepare delegation context for the subagent:

{
  "session_id": "sess_{timestamp}_{random}",
  "delegation_depth": 1,
  "delegation_path": ["orchestrator", "research", "skill-formal-research"],
  "timeout": 3600,
  "task_context": {
    "task_number": N,
    "task_name": "{project_name}",
    "description": "{description}",
    "task_type": "formal"
  },
  "focus_prompt": "{optional focus}",
  "metadata_file_path": "specs/{NNN}_{SLUG}/.return-meta.json"
}

Stage 5: Invoke Subagent

CRITICAL: You MUST use the Agent tool to spawn the subagent.

Required Tool Invocation:

Tool: Agent (NOT Skill, NOT Plan)
Parameters:
  - subagent_type: "formal-research-agent"
  - prompt: [Include task_context, delegation_context, focus_prompt, metadata_file_path]
  - description: "Execute formal research for task {N}"

DO NOT use Skill(formal-research-agent) - this will FAIL.

The subagent will:

• Analyze task for domain routing (logic, math, physics)
• Load appropriate domain context files
• Coordinate cross-domain research when needed
• Use Mathlib lookup tools
• Execute web research
• Create research report in specs/{NNN}_{SLUG}/reports/
• Write metadata to specs/{NNN}_{SLUG}/.return-meta.json
• Return a brief text summary (NOT JSON)

Stage 5b: Self-Execution Fallback

CRITICAL: If you performed the work above WITHOUT using the Agent tool (i.e., you read files, wrote artifacts, or updated metadata directly instead of spawning a subagent), you MUST write a .return-meta.json file now before proceeding to postflight. Use the schema from return-metadata-file.md with status value "researched".

If you DID use the Agent tool, skip this stage -- the subagent already wrote the metadata.

Postflight (ALWAYS EXECUTE)

The following stages MUST execute after work is complete, whether the work was done by a subagent or inline (Stage 5b). Do NOT skip these stages for any reason.

Stage 6-11: Standard Postflight

Parse metadata file, update task status, link artifacts (update TODO.md per @.claude/context/patterns/artifact-linking-todo.md with field_name=**Research**, next_field=**Plan**), git commit, cleanup, return brief summary.

Error Handling

Standard error handling patterns: validate inputs, handle missing metadata, non-blocking git failures.

Return Format

This skill returns a brief text summary (NOT JSON). The JSON metadata is written to the file and processed internally.