Just In Time Research

Just-In-Time Research

When you encounter a decision requiring external knowledge (standards, best practices, market data, technical evaluation), conduct research immediately rather than guessing.

When This Rule Applies

Load this rule when:

• Evaluating technology choices or comparing options
• Checking standards/specifications (WCAG, RFC, ISO)
• Assessing compliance or regulatory requirements
• Needing current market data or statistics
• Looking up integration patterns for external services
• Any decision where your training data may be outdated

Do NOT research for:

• Well-established patterns you're confident about
• Decisions already documented in loaded artifacts
• Basic programming concepts

Research Priority Order

Use research tools in this order:

1. Check existing research first - Look for *-research-report-*.md files in the project/epic directories
2. Perplexity MCP (if configured) - Use perplexity_search for quick facts, perplexity_research for deep analysis
3. Built-in web_search - Fallback when Perplexity unavailable
4. Generate manual prompt - If automated tools insufficient, create a prompt for the user

When an MCP/tool is down (resilient fallback)

On any tool failure (401/quota, 429, timeout, 5xx):

1. Drop to the next tier immediately (Perplexity -> web_search -> manual prompt) and proceed; never block the task on one provider.
2. Record the outage inline (tool, error, time) so the gap is auditable.
3. For a critical MCP with a documented HTTP/CLI equivalent, use the direct API or terminal commands as a same-tier fallback.
4. Re-attempt the preferred tier once restored; note when richer results supersede the fallback.

Research Workflow

Step 1: Check Existing Research

Before conducting new research, always check:

specs/projects/[project-id]/*-research-report-*.md
specs/projects/[project-id]/epics/[epic-id]/*-research-report-*.md

Also check if upstream artifacts (architecture.md, context.md, ux-strategy.md) already contain relevant "Research Informing" sections.

If relevant research exists:

1. Load and extract relevant findings
2. Reference as "Reused Research" in your research trail
3. Only conduct new research if gaps remain

Step 2: Identify the Knowledge Gap

Ask yourself:

• What specific information is missing?
• Can this be decided from well-known best practices?
• Do I need current/external information to decide wisely?

Step 3: Execute Research

For quick facts (standards, specs, simple lookups):

• Use perplexity_search or web_search

For analysis (trade-offs, comparisons, deep dives):

• Use perplexity_research

For complex decisions (multi-factor analysis):

• Use perplexity_reason

Step 4: Synthesize and Document

Extract key findings with source URLs. Add to the artifact:

## Research Informing This Section

- **[Topic]**: [Finding] (Source: [URL], [Date])

When Automated Research Fails

If research tools don't provide sufficient information:

1. Create a research prompt file: [command]-research-prompt-[topic].md
2. Tell the user: "Deep research needed for [topic]. Please run this prompt in your preferred research tool."
3. Pause and wait for the user to provide findings
4. Continue after incorporating results

Quality Guidelines

• Prefer official documentation over blog posts
• Use recent sources (2 years for standards, 6 months for market data)
• Cross-reference multiple sources for critical decisions
• Note when information may be outdated
• Document what research influenced what decision

Commands That Use This Pattern

Project Level: /project-ux, /project-context, /project-constitution, /project-architecture, /project-design-system, /project-plan

Epic Level: /epic-architecture, /epic-plan

Story Level: /story-plan