# Source Gathering

> Find and retrieve primary sources for a line of inquiry, and log them without reading them.

- Skill: `tinyhumansai/source-gathering` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tinyhumansai/source-gathering`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tinyhumansai/source-gathering/raw
- Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: tinyhumansai (https://skillmd.com/u/tinyhumansai)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tinyhumansai/source-gathering

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# Source Gathering

Retrieve the evidence. Do not interpret it — that is a different agent's job,
and the separation is what stops a search-result snippet being reported as a
source that was read.

## When to use

- A `questions` row needs evidence it does not have.
- A finding rests on something nobody has actually retrieved.

## Steps

1. **Read `sources` first.** The commonest waste here is fetching what is
   already downloaded, and the second commonest is re-fetching something already
   discarded as unusable.
2. **Search to discover, fetch to retrieve.** `web_search` finds a locator;
   `web_fetch` retrieves what is behind it. Nothing in the `web` namespace can
   find a URL on its own, and a snippet is not a source.
3. **Prefer the original.** A paper over a press release about the paper, a
   filing over an article about the filing, a dataset over a chart drawn from
   it.
4. **Record each one** with `record_entry` on `sources`: the locator, and
   `kind` as primary, secondary or commentary. Be honest about `kind`; it is
   what most evidential disagreements turn out to be about.
5. **Note the interest.** Who produced this and what they gain from it, in a
   sentence. Not a score.
6. **Stop at gathered.** Do not summarize what you retrieved. `establishes` is
   filled in by whoever reads it.

## Output

`sources` rows in `gathered`, each with a locator somebody else can re-open, and
nothing said about what they mean.