Skill Web Research

Web Research Skill

Thin wrapper that delegates web research to web-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/project/web/README.md - Web context overview
• Path: .claude/context/project/web/domain/astro-framework.md - Astro reference

Trigger Conditions

This skill activates when:

• Task type is "web"
• Research is needed for web development tasks
• Astro, Tailwind, Cloudflare, or accessibility documentation needs to be gathered

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

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

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

# Extract fields
task_type=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.task_type // "web"')
status=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.status')
project_name=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.project_name')
description=$(echo "$task_data" | jq -r '.description // ""')

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-web-research"
operation="research"

Routing fix: this call replaces a hand-rolled raw-jq status write with update-task-status.sh preflight (via skill_preflight_update), and the raw cat > .../.postflight-pending heredoc (which previously dropped stop_hook_active) with skill_create_postflight_marker, which emits the full Shape A key set.

Stage 4a: Memory Retrieval and Literature Detection

Skip memory retrieval if: clean_flag is true (from --clean).

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

Follow @.claude/context/patterns/lit-stage4a-flow.md in full to resolve --lit and set lit_context, exactly as skill-researcher does. This skill supplies the shared block's preconditions: lit_flag, description, orchestrator_mode (default "false" when unset).

Stage 4: Prepare Delegation Context

{
  "session_id": "sess_{timestamp}_{random}",
  "delegation_depth": 1,
  "delegation_path": ["orchestrator", "research", "skill-web-research"],
  "timeout": 3600,
  "task_context": {
    "task_number": N,
    "task_name": "{project_name}",
    "description": "{description}",
    "task_type": "web"
  },
  "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.

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

The subagent will:

• Search local web project files (src/, public/)
• Search web for framework documentation
• Analyze findings and synthesize recommendations
• Create research report
• Write metadata file
• Return brief text summary

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: Parse Subagent Return

Read the metadata file:

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")
else
    status="failed"
fi

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

Follow @.claude/context/patterns/skill-postflight-flow.md for Stage 7 (postflight status update), Stage 7a (memory-candidate propagation), Stage 8 (artifact linking), and Stage 8a (TTS notify):

field_name='**Research**'
next_field='**Plan**'
skill_postflight_update "$task_number" "$operation" "$session_id" "$status"
skill_propagate_memory_candidates "$task_number" "$memory_candidates" "$session_id"
skill_link_artifacts "$task_number" "$artifact_path" "$artifact_type" "$artifact_summary" \
  "$field_name" "$next_field" "$session_id"
skill_lifecycle_notify "$status"

Routing fix: this replaces both the raw-jq two-step artifact-linking pattern (previously hand-rolled per-call, bypassing state-write.sh's mutex) and the missing memory-candidate propagation (this skill never read or propagated memory_candidates before this conversion).

Stage 9: Git Commit

Apply the research scope from .claude/context/standards/git-staging-scope.md — targeted staging, never a repo-wide add:

git add \
  "specs/${padded_num}_${project_name}/reports/" \
  "specs/${padded_num}_${project_name}/.return-meta.json" \
  "specs/TODO.md" \
  "specs/state.json"
git commit -m "task ${task_number}: complete research

Session: ${session_id}

Stage 10: Cleanup

Follow @.claude/context/patterns/skill-postflight-flow.md's Stage 9 (cleanup):

skill_cleanup "$padded_num" "$project_name"

Stage 11: Return Brief Summary

Research completed for task {N}:
- Found framework documentation and project patterns
- Identified implementation approach with accessibility considerations
- Created report at specs/{NNN}_{SLUG}/reports/MM_{short-slug}.md
- Status updated to [RESEARCHED]
- Changes committed

Error Handling

Input Validation Errors

Return immediately if task not found.

Metadata File Missing

Keep status as "researching" for resume.

Git Commit Failure

Non-blocking: Log failure but continue.

Return Format

Brief text summary (NOT JSON).

Example successful return:

Research completed for task {N}:
- Found Astro component patterns and Tailwind v4 styling approaches
- Identified accessibility requirements for interactive elements
- Created report at specs/412_add_blog_section/reports/01_blog-section-research.md
- Status updated to [RESEARCHED]
- Changes committed with session sess_1736700000_abc123

Example partial return:

Research partially completed for task {N}:
- Found local project patterns
- Web search failed due to network error
- Partial report created at specs/412_add_blog_section/reports/01_blog-section-research.md
- Status remains [RESEARCHING] - run /research 412 to continue