# Research Documentation

> Use when a repository produces measurements, benchmarks or experiments that need writing up as research rather than as a guide, or when any document in it has to be authored in LaTeX and compiled to PDF. What counts as research and what does not, the docs/research layout, the shape of a study document, the evidence rules (every number traceable, reproduction stated as a command, validate the instrument before trusting its readings, negative results get written up), when a study graduates to a LaTeX paper or a Beamer deck, how a non-study document borrows the house style without claiming to be research, how Mermaid diagrams reach a PDF from a single source, how a second language edition is published, and the shape of the GitHub Actions workflow that builds any of them. Bundled assets: the study template, the paper template and the Beamer theme.

- Skill: `konradcinkusz/research-documentation` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 5 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add konradcinkusz/research-documentation`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/konradcinkusz/research-documentation/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Docs & Writing
- Author: konradcinkusz (https://skillmd.com/u/konradcinkusz)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/konradcinkusz/research-documentation

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# Scientific research documentation

**Read [`references/00-RESEARCH-DOCUMENTATION.md`](references/00-RESEARCH-DOCUMENTATION.md) before applying any of this.**
That file is the standard; everything below it is a summary to help you decide
whether this skill applies and to check your work afterwards.

Reference-architecture principles: P14.

Bundled templates: [`assets/TEMPLATE.md`](assets/TEMPLATE.md), [`assets/PAPER-TEMPLATE.tex`](assets/PAPER-TEMPLATE.tex), [`assets/BEAMER-THEME.sty`](assets/BEAMER-THEME.sty).

## What this standard covers

- What counts as research (and what doesn't)
- Where research lives in a repository
- The shape of a study
- The evidence rules
- From study to paper (LaTeX)
- Presenting work as slides (Beamer)
- Documents that borrow the house style without being studies
- Diagrams in a PDF
- Publishing a document in more than one language
- Building the PDF in CI
- Relationship to the rest of the standards
- Worked example

## What counts as research (and what doesn't)

A **study** asks a question whose answer wasn't known before the work was
done, and answers it with evidence: measurements, verified computations,
reproducible experiments, or systematic analysis of committed code. Examples:
benchmarking an algorithm against its theoretical complexity, verifying an
implementation against independently derived expected values, characterizing
a system's behavior under a sweep of inputs, root-causing a discrepancy
between a model's specification and its implementation.

Not research, and living elsewhere:

- **Theory/background material** — teaching a reader established results
  (textbook algorithms, probability rules). That is a theory doc
  (`docs/THEORY.md` in `bayesian-inference` is the worked example) and a
  study *cites* it rather than repeating it.
- **Design decisions** — those go in the decisions log
  (`docs/architecture/05-DECISIONS.md` pattern).
- **Gap analysis / roadmap** — `docs/architecture/` per the constitution.

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Generated from [`docs/research/00-RESEARCH-DOCUMENTATION.md`](https://github.com/konradcinkusz/architecture-standards/blob/main/docs/research/00-RESEARCH-DOCUMENTATION.md) by `scripts/build-marketplace.mjs`. Do not edit this file: change the source document, or its entry in `catalog/marketplace.catalog.json`, and re-run the generator.