# Research Experiment Plan > Convert a concrete research claim into a tracked, decisive experiment plan that works either as a standalone planning artifact or as the experiment stage inside a coordinated research workflow. Use when asked to design experiments, define baselines or ablations, decide run order, separate must-run from nice-to-have evidence, or turn a claim plus evaluation goal into a validation plan. - Skill: `yananlong/research-experiment-plan` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 14 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add yananlong/research-experiment-plan` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/yananlong/research-experiment-plan/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Research & Search - Author: yananlong (https://skillmd.com/u/yananlong) - Updated: 2026-09-21 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/yananlong/research-experiment-plan --- # Research Experiment Plan ## Quick start 1. Freeze the claim, decision rule, and anti-claims before listing runs. 2. Classify the intended evidence as exploratory, confirmatory, independently verified, or operational/high-stakes; use `../research-pipeline-planner/references/epistemic-assurance-contract.md` when promoting beyond exploratory status. 3. Decide whether this is a standalone plan or the experiment stage inside an orchestrated suite. 4. Initialize the full experiment pack with `scripts/init_experiment_pack.py` whenever the plan needs tracked execution. 5. Build the minimum decisive experiment blocks, not a benchmark wishlist or a paper-defence script. 6. Run a cheap non-vacuity preflight before expensive or confirmatory execution. 7. Separate must-run from nice-to-have runs, attach explicit decision gates, and emit bridge-ready outputs for later execution. 8. For orchestrated execution, declare inputs, evaluator artifacts, required outputs, allowed lineage relations, and gate-conditioned downstream activation using `../research-pipeline-planner/references/experiment-execution-binding.md`. ## Constants - `MAX_PRIMARY_CLAIMS = 2` unless multiple inseparable claims are truly required. - `MAX_CORE_BLOCKS = 5` unless the evaluation setting forces more. - `MAX_BASELINE_FAMILIES = 3` unless the field norm demands additional families. - `DEFAULT_SEEDS = 3` when stochastic variance matters and budget allows. ## Modes ### Standalone mode - Work from the user prompt plus any local notes or result files already present. - Do not require a suite root. - If the user asks for project-level sequencing, current-state inspection, or coordination across multiple research stages, invoke `research-pipeline-planner` first instead of treating experiment planning as the whole task. - If the user asks what idea to pursue, or the claim is still only a broad research direction, invoke `research-idea-discovery` before experiment planning. - Collaboration is still allowed: if novelty review, results audit, or review-loop artifacts exist, use them; if one of those skills would materially improve the plan, recommend or invoke it. ### Orchestrated mode - Prefer the canonical directory `./experiment-plan/`. - Read upstream artifacts from `research-brief.md`, `artifact-index.md`, `./ideation/`, `./novelty-review/`, and `./literature-review/` when present. - Keep the experiment outputs easy for downstream paper planning and review to consume. - Carry forward selection history, evidence class, negative evidence, and material predecessor failures rather than resetting them at the experiment stage. - Treat `claim-map.json` and `run-blocks.json` as frozen inputs when creating an experiment-bound harness work item. - Keep technical episode completion, scientific disposition, and decision-gate result distinct. A correctly executed negative experiment may complete while failing its scientific gate. ## Input contract - Minimum: - a concrete claim or hypothesis - an evaluation goal or target decision - Prefer: - baselines under consideration - constraints on data, compute, or deadlines - known reviewer objections - existing novelty or literature artifacts - current and requested evidence class - case-selection history - material predecessor failures and prior negative results ## Hard stops - Stop if the claim is still too vague to falsify. - If no concrete claim exists yet, route to `research-idea-discovery` instead of inventing one inside the experiment plan. - Stop if the evaluation target is undefined. - Stop if the proposed experiment block mixes too many interventions to interpret cleanly. - In standalone mode, do not force extra structure when a compact direct answer is sufficient. - Do not design a confirmatory route around cases selected because they already yield the desired answer; preserve them as exploratory and define a separate selection rule. - Stop confirmatory promotion when the decision or loss contract omits a decision-relevant error, omission, skip, null, retry, or failure state. - Stop confirmatory promotion when the evaluated system can read hidden truth, the oracle and runner share undisclosed hard-coded policy, or the claimed independence is only a role label. - Do not treat structural validation, internal agreement, self-hashes, copied digests, environment flags, or field presence as proof that the claimed assurance property holds. - Do not treat a technically completed run as a passing scientific gate. - Do not use experiment lineage to encode a D3-D4 paper pivot; route that through the research commitment contract. - A failed non-vacuity preflight normally forces revision or a weaker evidence class; it does not prohibit exploratory work. ## Output contract - Primary files: - `experiment-plan.md` - `experiment-tracker.md` - `claim-map.json` - `run-blocks.json` - `decision-gates.md` - `execution-bridge.md` - In orchestrated mode, these live under `./experiment-plan/`. - In standalone mode, any target directory is valid. - `claim-map.json` is the machine-readable source of truth for claims, anti-claims, evidence class, decision rules, loss contracts, falsification tests, and predecessor failures. - `run-blocks.json` is the machine-readable source of truth for experiment blocks, dependencies, decision-gate links, pass/fail criteria, selection rules, non-vacuity checks, outcome accounting, hidden-information controls, execution declarations, and allowed lineage relations. - `decision-gates.md` records the checkpoints that can halt, narrow, reclassify, or authorize later blocks after a result is interpreted. - `execution-bridge.md` translates the plan into implementation-ready instructions without forcing another skill to reverse-engineer the planning intent. ## Workflow ### 0) Load the proposal context before inventing runs - Read the strongest available upstream artifacts first: - `research-brief.md` - `novelty-review/novelty-report.md` - `literature-review/*.review.md` - `review-loop/REVIEW_STATE.json` - existing result tables or audit notes - Extract: - problem anchor - dominant contribution - optional supporting contribution - reviewer-relevant failure modes - data, compute, and deadline constraints - current evidence class and outcome-informed selection history - material predecessor failures and unresolved negative evidence - If these are missing, derive the same fields explicitly from the user prompt before planning any block. ### 1) Freeze the claim map - Use `references/claim-evidence-map-template.md`. - Write: - primary claim - optional supporting claim - anti-claims to rule out - minimum convincing evidence - current and requested evidence class - complete decision rule and loss or outcome contract - falsification test - material predecessor failures and their disposition - Cap the number of primary/supporting claims aggressively. - Define what result would force reframing, reclassification, or abandonment. - If the claim map is unstable, revise it before planning runs. - Record the claim map in both `experiment-plan.md` and `claim-map.json`. ### 2) Build the experimental storyline before the detailed blocks - Start from a compact default storyline and delete any block that does not test a decision-relevant claim: - main anchor result - novelty isolation - simplicity or elegance check - frontier-necessity check when a frontier-model-era component is central - failure analysis or qualitative diagnosis - Do not optimize only for a favorable paper story. A block exists to discriminate among claims, actions, or explanations, including outcomes that weaken the project. - Mark each storyline block as: - main paper - appendix - cut - A stronger modern baseline is preferable to many weak baselines. - If the project is intentionally non-frontier, say so explicitly and skip the frontier-necessity block rather than forcing one. ### 3) Run the non-vacuity preflight Before expensive or confirmatory runs, check that: - at least one plausible case makes competing systems, policies, or actions differ; - every decision-relevant error, including failure to act, is penalized by the loss or outcome contract; - the comparator can win under a plausible condition rather than being disabled by construction; - case selection was not conditioned on the oracle answer or desired outcome; - skipped, failed, null, and retried cases remain visible in the accounting. Record the result in `decision-gates.md` and in each affected block's `non_vacuity_check`. If the preflight fails, revise the plan or keep the evidence exploratory. ### 4) Build decisive experiment blocks - Use `references/experiment-plan-template.md`. - Use `references/experiment-block-schema.md`. - Group runs into named blocks with a single purpose each. - Every block must answer a reviewer-relevant question, not just produce another number. - Label each block: - must-run - nice-to-have - defer - For every kept block, specify: - claim tested - anti-claim ruled out - why this block exists - dataset / split / task - compared systems - decisive metrics - setup details - success criterion - failure interpretation - expected paper artifact - compute budget as a planning note, not a repository-enforced assurance property - dependencies - decision gate ID - case-selection rule - non-vacuity check - complete outcome accounting - hidden-information controls - actual independence requirements - execution mode and entrypoint when known - declared input snapshot paths - declared evaluator snapshot paths - required output paths - allowed lineage relations - Write the block objects to `run-blocks.json` rather than leaving the critical structure only in prose. ### 5) Tighten controls and ablations - Use `references/control-and-ablation-checklist.md`. - Require a fair comparison protocol and the minimum ablations needed to isolate the claimed factor. - Flag hidden changes such as altered data, training time, search budget, or model capacity. - A simplicity check should usually compare the final method against an overbuilt or tempting extra-component variant. - A frontier-necessity check should compare the chosen modern component against the strongest simpler plausible alternative. - Treat agreement among implementations that share policy, code, data, or hidden truth as correlated evidence until diversity is demonstrated. - State whether review is self-review or materially independent across context, data, implementation, evaluation, and advancement authority. ### 6) Build the run order and decision gates - Use `references/run-order-template.md`. - Use `references/decision-gates-template.md`. - Put must-run blocks first. - Add stop/go gates so later runs depend on what earlier runs actually show. - Every must-run block needs: - a gate bound to that block; - a condition that advances the plan; - a condition that forces revision or weaker evidence classification; - a condition that stops the plan. - A dependent block that requires a scientific outcome must declare a gate-conditioned activation rule in the harness, not only a structural dependency. - Track expected outputs and lifecycle state in `experiment-tracker.md`. - Use tracker statuses: - `planned` - `ready` - `blocked` - `running` - `analyzed` - `decisive` - `inconclusive` - `dropped` - Carry material predecessor failures forward until new evidence resolves them; reclassification, replacement, or omission is not resolution. ### 7) Emit the execution bridge - Use `references/execution-bridge-template.md`. - For each must-run block, record: - exact upstream claim IDs - decision gate ID - required inputs and datasets - declared input and evaluator snapshot paths - expected command or implementation entrypoint if known - required output artifacts the auditor or paper planner should look for - intended lineage relation and parent-run requirement - blockers that must be resolved before someone starts coding or submitting jobs - evidence class and whether outcome inspection would trigger reclassification - hidden information unavailable to the evaluated system - all failure, skip, null, and retry states that must be retained - idempotency and restart requirements - any downstream activation rule governed by the gate - Keep `execution-bridge.md` concise and implementation-facing. It exists so later stages do not have to reconstruct planning intent from a narrative plan. ### 8) Record risks and collaboration hooks - Use `references/risk-confound-checklist.md`. - If novelty is still uncertain, pull in `research-novelty-review`. - If existing results already exist, pull in `research-results-auditor`. - If the plan will later feed a draft or response to reviewers, keep outputs legible to `research-paper-plan` and `research-review-loop`. - Validate tracked packs with `scripts/validate_experiment_pack.py` before treating them as stable stage artifacts. - The default validator profile remains structural for backward compatibility. For confirmatory or high-stakes promotion, run it with `--assurance-profile confirmatory`; even that checks field presence, links, and internal consistency, not whether the declared controls actually held. ## References - `references/experiment-plan-template.md` - `references/claim-evidence-map-template.md` - `references/experiment-block-schema.md` - `references/run-order-template.md` - `references/decision-gates-template.md` - `references/execution-bridge-template.md` - `references/control-and-ablation-checklist.md` - `references/risk-confound-checklist.md` - `references/tabmol-ddi-ood-adapter.md` - `../research-pipeline-planner/references/experiment-execution-binding.md` - `../research-pipeline-planner/references/epistemic-assurance-contract.md` ## Scripts - `scripts/init_experiment_pack.py`: create the full experiment-planning pack in a standalone directory or the suite's `experiment-plan/` directory, including execution and lineage scaffolds. - `scripts/validate_experiment_pack.py`: validate required headings, JSON structure, reciprocal claim/block links, gate bindings, execution declarations, lineage policy, tracker states, and confirmatory assurance fields without claiming executor isolation or scientific validity.