Skill Researcher Hard

Researcher Hard Skill

Hard-mode wrapper that delegates research to general-research-hard-agent subagent. Extends skill-researcher with hard-mode behavioral contracts (H2, H3, H4) and postflight logging of adversarial verification status.

Relationship to base skill: This skill is structurally identical to skill-researcher except it dispatches to general-research-hard-agent and logs adversarial_verification_triggered. Maintenance note: changes to skill-researcher postflight should be mirrored here.

Context References

Reference (do not load eagerly):

• Path: .claude/context/formats/return-metadata-file.md - Metadata file schema
• Path: .claude/context/contracts/anti-analysis.md - H2 contract (loaded by agent)
• Path: .claude/context/contracts/reference-grounding.md - H3 contract (loaded by agent)
• Path: .claude/context/contracts/adversarial-verification.md - H4 contract: Claim Verification Bar, Confidence Level Taxonomy, Contradiction Resolution Protocol (MANDATORY, loaded by agent)
• Path: .claude/context/patterns/postflight-control.md - Marker file protocol
• Path: .claude/context/patterns/jq-escaping-workarounds.md - jq escaping patterns

Trigger Conditions

This skill activates when:

• /research N --hard is invoked and no extension hard variant exists
• Routed here by command-route-skill.sh with effort_flag="hard"

Execution Flow

Stage 1: Input Validation

Validate required inputs:

• task_number - Must be provided and exist in state.json

task_data=$(jq -r --argjson num "$task_number" \
  '.active_projects[] | select(.project_number == $num)' \
  specs/state.json)

if [ -z "$task_data" ]; then
  return error "Task $task_number not found"
fi

task_type=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.task_type // "general"')
status=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.status')
project_name=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.project_name')
description=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.description // ""')

Stage 1.5: Hard-Mode Cost Note

Emit one-time cost note (via session flag) on first hard-mode invocation:

session_flag_file="/tmp/.hard-mode-notified-${SESSION_ID:-$$}"
if [ ! -f "$session_flag_file" ]; then
  echo "[hard-mode] Hard mode active. Cost: ~3-5x standard. Use --hard for deflection-prone or formally complex tasks." >&2
  touch "$session_flag_file"
fi

Stage 2 + Stage 3: Preflight Status Update and Postflight Marker

Source skill-base.sh once, then follow @.claude/context/patterns/skill-preflight-flow.md in full for Stage 2 (preflight status update) and Stage 3 (marker creation):

source .claude/scripts/skill-base.sh
padded_num=$(printf "%03d" "$task_number")
skill_name="skill-researcher-hard"
operation="research"

Marker unification note: this skill's marker previously dropped created and stop_hook_active (Shape C) — a drift, not a hard-mode design decision. Routing through skill_create_postflight_marker restores both fields as part of this conversion, matching every other importer's Shape A schema.

Stage 3a: Read Artifact Number

artifact_number=$(jq -r --argjson num "$task_number" \
  '.active_projects[] | select(.project_number == $num) | .next_artifact_number // 1' \
  specs/state.json)

if [ "$artifact_number" = "null" ] || [ -z "$artifact_number" ]; then
  padded_num=$(printf "%03d" "$task_number")
  count=$(ls "specs/${padded_num}_${project_name}/reports/"*[0-9][0-9]*.md 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
  artifact_number=$((count + 1))
fi

artifact_padded=$(printf "%02d" "$artifact_number")

Stage 4a: Memory Retrieval (Auto)

if [ "$clean_flag" != "true" ]; then
  memory_context=$(bash .claude/scripts/memory-retrieve.sh "$description" "$task_type" "$focus_prompt" 2>/dev/null) || memory_context=""
fi

Literature Detection and Injection (Stage 4a, shared block)

Follow @.claude/context/patterns/lit-stage4a-flow.md in full to resolve --lit and set lit_context: call literature-lit-flag-resolve.sh, branch on all six directives (LIT_DISABLED, SUBINDEX_PRESENT, GLOBAL_MISSING, PROMPT_NEEDED, AUTONOMOUS_GLOBAL, SPARSE_PROMPT_NEEDED), issue the real four-option AskUserQuestion for the two interactive directives (including the "Search online to ingest" option wired to the STABLE-CONTRACT literature-ingest-online.sh bridge), apply the two-checkpoint sparse re-prompt after "Use global corpus now", and take the deterministic [lit:auto] autonomous fallback when orchestrator_mode == "true" (never calling AskUserQuestion in that case). This skill supplies the shared block's preconditions: lit_flag, description, and orchestrator_mode (read from the delegation context; default "false" when unset).

Note: lit_flag is independent of clean_flag. Using --clean --lit suppresses memory retrieval but still injects literature briefing. Literature briefing is gated solely on lit_flag == "true".

Stage 4: Prepare Delegation Context

{
  "session_id": "{session_id}",
  "delegation_depth": 1,
  "delegation_path": ["orchestrator", "research", "skill-researcher-hard"],
  "timeout": 3600,
  "task_context": {
    "task_number": N,
    "task_name": "{project_name}",
    "description": "{description}",
    "task_type": "{task_type}"
  },
  "artifact_number": "{artifact_number}",
  "focus_prompt": "{optional focus}",
  "effort_flag": "hard",
  "model_flag": "{model_flag from command, null if not set}",
  "roadmap_path": "specs/ROADMAP.md",
  "metadata_file_path": "specs/{NNN}_{SLUG}/.return-meta.json"
}

Stage 4b: Read Format Specification

format_content=$(cat .claude/context/formats/report-format.md)

Stage 5: Invoke Subagent

Tool: Agent
Parameters:
  - subagent_type: "general-research-hard-agent"
  - prompt: [task_context, delegation_context, format specification, memory_context, lit_context, focus]
  - description: "Execute hard-mode research for task {N}"

Include format specification, memory context, and literature briefing in prompt as per skill-researcher pattern. If lit_context is non-empty, inject it as a <literature-briefing> block after the memory context and before the task-specific instructions.

Stage 5b: Self-Execution Fallback

Follow @.claude/context/patterns/skill-self-execution-fallback.md in full. This skill's success status value for that block's write obligation is "researched".

Postflight (ALWAYS EXECUTE)

Stage 6: Parse Subagent Return

Read metadata file and extract: status, artifact_path, artifact_type, artifact_summary, memory_candidates, and additionally adversarial_verification_triggered.

metadata_file="specs/${padded_num}_${project_name}/.return-meta.json"

if [ -f "$metadata_file" ] && jq empty "$metadata_file" 2>/dev/null; then
    status=$(jq -r '.status' "$metadata_file")
    artifact_path=$(jq -r '.artifacts[0].path // ""' "$metadata_file")
    artifact_type=$(jq -r '.artifacts[0].type // ""' "$metadata_file")
    artifact_summary=$(jq -r '.artifacts[0].summary // ""' "$metadata_file")
    memory_candidates=$(jq -c '.memory_candidates // []' "$metadata_file")
    adversarial_triggered=$(jq -r '.adversarial_verification_triggered // false' "$metadata_file")
else
    status="failed"
    adversarial_triggered="false"
fi

# Log adversarial verification status
echo "[hard-mode] Adversarial verification triggered: $adversarial_triggered" >&2

Stage 6a: Validate Artifact Content (non-blocking)

if [ "$status" = "researched" ] && [ -n "$artifact_path" ] && [ -f "$artifact_path" ]; then
    bash .claude/scripts/validate-artifact.sh "$artifact_path" report --fix || true
fi

Stage 7, 7a, 8, 8a, 9: Postflight Status, Memory Candidates, Artifact Linking, Notify, Cleanup

Follow @.claude/context/patterns/skill-postflight-flow.md in full for Stage 7 (postflight status update), Stage 7a (memory-candidate propagation), Stage 8 (artifact linking), Stage 8a (TTS notify), and Stage 9 (cleanup). Real imports replace the prior Same as skill-researcher Stage 7a / Stage 8 prose cross-references — both targets were valid, so this is drift-proofing (a cross-reference can silently go stale; an @-import cannot):

field_name='**Research**'
next_field='**Plan**'

This skill supplies the shared block's preconditions: task_number, padded_num, project_name, session_id, operation, status, artifact_path, artifact_type, artifact_summary, memory_candidates, field_name, next_field.

Research-specific addition, NOT covered by the shared block: increment next_artifact_number immediately after the shared block's Stage 7 call, guarded the same way as skill-researcher:

if [ "$status" = "researched" ]; then
  bash .claude/scripts/state-write.sh \
    '(.active_projects[] | select(.project_number == '$task_number')).next_artifact_number =
      (((.active_projects[] | select(.project_number == '$task_number')).next_artifact_number // 1) + 1)' \
    --session-id "$session_id"
fi

MUST NOT (Postflight Boundary)

After the agent returns, this skill MUST NOT:

1. Edit source files - All research work is done by agent
2. Run build/test commands - Verification is done by agent
3. Use MCP/WebSearch tools - Research tools are for agent use only
4. Analyze or grep source - Analysis is agent work
5. Write reports - Artifact creation is agent work

The postflight phase is LIMITED TO:

• Reading agent metadata file
• Calling update-task-status.sh for status updates (state.json + TODO.md)
• Incrementing next_artifact_number via jq
• Linking artifacts in state.json
• Cleanup of temp/marker files

Reference: @.claude/context/standards/postflight-tool-restrictions.md