# Research

> Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or reading legwork delegated to a background agent.

- Skill: `dmmulroy/research` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dmmulroy/research`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dmmulroy/research/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: dmmulroy (https://skillmd.com/u/dmmulroy)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dmmulroy/research

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Spin up a **background agent** to do the research, so you keep working while it reads.

## Recursion guard

Before spawning, check `RESEARCH_SUBAGENT`:

- If `RESEARCH_SUBAGENT=1`, this pane is already the delegated researcher. **Do not spawn any agent or pane.** Perform the research and write the report directly.
- Otherwise, create one background pane with `herdr pane split ... --env RESEARCH_SUBAGENT=1`, and explicitly tell that agent not to delegate or spawn subagents.

Never create a second research agent as a retry. If the delegated agent stalls or fails, stop/close it and complete the research in the original pane.

The background agent's job:

1. Investigate the question against **primary sources** (official docs, source code, specs, first-party APIs), not a secondary write-up of them. Follow every claim back to the source that owns it.
2. Write the findings to a single Markdown file, citing each claim's source.
3. Save it where the repo already keeps such notes; match the existing convention, and if there is none, put it somewhere sensible and say where.