Research

Research

Research questions whose answer depends on documentation, source code, standards, first-party APIs, release behavior, or other evidence outside the current conversation. Do the work in the current session. A research request does not create a subagent.

Evidence

Prefer the source that owns the claim: official documentation, specifications, repository source, release notes, first-party APIs, and project-owned notes. Use secondary material only to find a primary source or to present a clearly labelled outside interpretation.

Record versions and dates when behavior can change. Separate sourced facts, inferences, and unresolved questions.

Obsidian notes

Preserve substantive discoveries in the user's Obsidian-backed project notes so a later session can recover the evidence. Update one topic or task note rather than creating a file for every lookup.

A useful note contains:

• the question and the decision it supports;
• the short answer;
• cited findings with URLs or source paths;
• version, date, uncertainty, and stale-risk notes;
• the effect on the current plan or implementation;
• open questions worth carrying forward.

Follow the vault's existing project folder and naming convention. When an Obsidian connector or known vault is unavailable, keep the findings in chat and report that they were not persisted. Do not fall back to a repository Markdown file or an arbitrary local note. Never store credentials, raw environment files, personal data, or large copied source passages.

Return

Lead with the conclusion, cite the evidence near each claim, and link or name the Obsidian note when one was updated. A later handoff should include that note as durable context.

This skill is a repository-owned fork of Matt Pocock's MIT-licensed research workflow. The local fork performs research in the current session and stores durable findings in Obsidian instead of spawning a background agent or writing notes into the repository.