# Research > Run an autonomous research lane against primary sources, ending in cited findings and, when the missing facts are human-held, a questionnaire. Use for investigations of vendor materials, regulations, upstream repos, recorded calls, or any fact-finding that should run fire-and-report. - Skill: `timharris707/research` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add timharris707/research` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/timharris707/research/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Docs & Writing - Author: timharris707 (https://skillmd.com/u/timharris707) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/timharris707/research --- # Research A research lane runs **autonomously** (fire-and-report): it investigates against primary sources (vendor materials, regulations, upstream repos, recorded calls, live systems you have access to) and ends in a **cited findings file** linked from the driving ticket. It runs two ways: as a `research` ticket inside a decision map (see the decision-map skill), and standalone for any investigation worth a recorded answer. ## Contract 1. **Primary sources only.** Read the actual material: the vendor doc, the upstream code, the regulation text, the recording. Secondary summaries are leads, not evidence. 2. **The deliverable is a findings file**, tracked in the repo's docs (default `docs/research/.md`, or the findings home the team-workflow binding doc names). Material that is PII-bearing or otherwise local-only goes in a git-ignored location instead; the findings file there is still linked from the ticket by path. 3. **Findings cite their sources inline.** A claim without a source is a hypothesis and is labeled as one. Distinguish clearly: what the source says, what you infer, what remains unknown. 4. **Link the findings file from the ticket** and summarize the feature-level answers in a ticket comment, so downstream decision rounds can cite it without opening the file. 5. Multiple research lanes may run in parallel: they share no state beyond the tracker. ## Standalone lanes still ride the tracker A research lane outside a map follows the same discipline a map ticket would: **claim the driving ticket per the repo's claim recipe before investigating**, and **title the session with the item** (default `# — `, per the [orchestrate skill's](../../run/orchestrate/SKILL.md) lane titling), so parallel lanes stay legible on the picker and the tracker alike. An investigation with no driving ticket gets one filed first: the findings need somewhere durable to land. ## The skeptic pass Findings that will drive a build decision face a skeptic before they are reported: dispatch an independent subagent whose brief is to **kill each load-bearing claim**: re-read the cited source, hunt the contradicting primary material, check versions and dates. A claim the skeptic kills is corrected or relabeled a hypothesis; the findings file records that the pass ran and what it changed. When nothing downstream builds on the findings, the pass is optional; say which way you called it in the ticket summary. ## When the facts are human-held When a research lane hits facts only an external human holds (a vendor contact, a partner engineer, a pilot user), it does not stall or guess: it ends with the **questionnaire terminal move**, [references/questionnaire.md](references/questionnaire.md). ## Done when (checkable: verify each line before reporting complete) - The findings file exists at the named location, every claim cited or labeled a hypothesis. - The driving ticket links the file and carries the feature-level summary. - Standalone lane: the discipline in "Standalone lanes still ride the tracker" held: check the claim and the title on the tracker and picker, not your memory of doing it. - The skeptic pass ran or was skipped per its section above, and the call is recorded in the ticket summary. - Any human-held gaps are covered by an emitted questionnaire (per the terminal move), not by silent assumptions. ## Attribution This skill is adapted from Matt Pocock's skills (MIT), and follows them closely: [`research`](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/research), a background agent investigating against primary sources, following every claim back to the source that owns it, leaving a cited Markdown file in the repo, and [`to-questionnaire`](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/to-questionnaire), which the questionnaire terminal move tracks structure for structure: **"grill the send, not the subject" is his phrase**, and the gap-targeted questions, most-important-first ordering, answer stubs, welcome for partial answers, and closing catch-all are his design. The tracker half of the lane framing is his [`wayfinder`](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/wayfinder)'s: research tickets run fire-and-report, in parallel, linked from the driving issue. What this repo adds: the standalone-lane discipline (the claim recipe and session titling, the findings home, the PII carve-out) and the skeptic pass.