Autoresearch

Autoresearch Workflow

Use when the user asks for autoresearch, or gives a bounded research goal whose deliverable is a defensible verdict rather than code ("find out", "investigate", "benchmark and draw a conclusion").

Usage

/skill:autoresearch "<research goal>"
/skill:autoresearch --spec .gjc/_session-{sessionid}/specs/deep-interview-<slug>.md

Invoke this workflow as /skill:autoresearch; the durable state behind it is driven by the gjc autoresearch runtime command.

Purpose

autoresearch runs one goal-directed research mission: it interleaves web research with data/environment experimentation and ends on a single structured, best-effort verdict. The verdict receipt carries a structured status, evidence[], caveats[], and the evaluator identity that issued it. The mission is research, NOT implementation: its durable outputs are findings, evidence, run records, and a verdict — never product code.

All mission state persists per session under .gjc/_session-{sessionid}/autoresearch/ and survives across gjc autoresearch invocations. The global ~/.gjc/autoresearch store is never written.

Always-used command examples

Use these exact gjc autoresearch commands before spending tool calls rediscovering syntax:

gjc autoresearch --spec <deep-interview-spec-path>
gjc autoresearch "<goal>"
gjc autoresearch
gjc autoresearch read --json
gjc autoresearch clear

• intake --spec <path> (or the bare --spec flag) — spec intake from a persisted deep-interview spec; asks zero questions.
• "<goal>" or bare invocation — cold intake; goal, constraints, and deliverables must be clarified before research begins.
• read --json — current mission artifact plus the append-only ledger snapshot.
• clear — retire the mission artifact and its working set, recording mission_cleared in the ledger. This never touches the session python REPL kernel; reset that with the python tool's own clear action.

Use when

Use when the user wants a bounded research mission whose output is a defensible verdict: a question that needs evidence from the web, local data, or both before any conclusion is drawn ("does X hold for this dataset?", "which approach benchmarks best?", "what changed between these two releases?"); an explicit request to run autoresearch; or a goal whose acceptance is a structured verdict with evidence and caveats.

Do not use when

• Ordinary pre-planning lookup that will be followed by a planning pass — route that through ralplan/deep-interview instead of opening a research mission.
• Implementing anything — autoresearch produces findings and a verdict, never code. Downstream implementation goes through the normal approval-gated path.
• A quick single answer that one read/search resolves directly.

Two intakes

Both intakes write the same mission artifact (objective, mode, deliverables, constraints, slug).

Spec intake

gjc autoresearch intake --spec <path> (or the bare --spec flag) reads a persisted deep-interview spec and starts the mission with zero clarification questions. The spec MUST declare its mission mode explicitly (a line like autoresearch-mode: web); a missing or invalid declaration is a hard fail. The consumed spec path and handoff time are recorded on the mission artifact.

Cold intake

gjc autoresearch "<goal>" (or a bare gjc autoresearch) signals cold intake. Clarify the goal, constraints, and deliverables BEFORE any research tool fires — no web search, no python kernel, no harness build — then write the mission with an explicit mode.

Mode

Every mission carries an explicit mode: web, mixed, or data. The mode is stated at intake and persisted in the mission artifact. It is NEVER inferred from the presence of a data file: a data file in the workspace without an explicit mode is a rejection, not a default. Data-context loading is gated to data/mixed mode only; web mode never attaches data context.

Goal mode (nudge until verdict)

Autoresearch asks the agent to drive its mission through GJC goal mode: an inline goal keeps the autonomous continuation loop nudging the agent through intake → research → verdict until the mission's structured verdict receipt exists. This is a cooperative, instruction-only integration, not an autoresearch runtime enforcement boundary: the agent calls the unified goal tool itself; gjc autoresearch commands and hooks never mutate goal state; and no autoresearch-specific nudge budget or ask blocking applies. Generic goal-runtime guards, abort behavior, and handoff behavior still apply and can leave a mission or goal open; the agent must surface or retry those failures rather than treating them as completed lifecycle steps.

Lifecycle:

• Create — right after the mission artifact is written (both spec and cold intake), call goal({"op":"get"}); create only when it returns no goal or a terminal complete/dropped goal. Use goal({"op":"create","objective":"Drive the autoresearch mission '<mission objective>' to a persisted structured verdict receipt"}). No goal exists during intake questioning, so ask-driven cold-intake clarification is unaffected.
• Collision rule — an active or paused goal is a collision, not an invitation to call create: never replace, resume, complete, or drop a different goal. If the existing goal has this mission's exact objective, continue its lifecycle; otherwise run the mission without goal mode and leave the other goal untouched. This matters because the goal runtime rejects create over any nonterminal goal, including a paused one.
• Resume rule — when re-entering a mission (gjc autoresearch read --json), inspect both the latest persisted verdict and goal({"op":"get"}). With no verdict or an explicit status.disposition: "inconclusive", create a goal only when no goal or a terminal goal exists; resume a matching paused goal with goal({"op":"resume"}), continue a matching active goal, and honor any different active/paused goal as a collision. With status.disposition: "conclusive", never create or resume a new goal: complete the matching nonterminal goal if one exists, otherwise retry only the pending mission clear. A missing or different disposition is treated as open rather than auto-cleared.
• Complete — after a structured verdict receipt is persisted under .gjc/_session-{sessionid}/autoresearch/, call goal({"op":"complete"}) exactly once for the matching nonterminal mission goal. Any verdict completes the goal-tracking pass, including best-effort and inconclusive verdicts; an inconclusive mission stays open for follow-up, but its current goal pass is complete. Verdict writes themselves are append-only and not idempotent: after an uncertain verdict command, read the latest ledger/receipt before retrying and do not issue a duplicate verdict merely because the first response was lost. If goal completion or the following clear fails, retain the durable state and retry on re-entry rather than issuing a second completion or dropping a completed goal.
• Auto-clear — only status.disposition: "conclusive" is terminal for mission cleanup; best-effort evidence and confidence do not by themselves determine terminality. Immediately after completing the matching goal, run gjc autoresearch clear so no stale conclusive mission artifact lingers. This automatic clear follows a completed goal and never calls goal({"op":"drop"}); if the clear fails, retry it on re-entry without creating a new goal. Inconclusive, missing, or other dispositions skip the clear — the mission stays open for follow-up under the existing non-terminal contract.
• Drop — call goal({"op":"drop"}) only for this mission's matching nonterminal goal, whether active or paused: on a manual gjc autoresearch clear (pre-verdict or open-inconclusive mission), on handoff to /skill:ralplan, /skill:deep-interview, or /skill:ultragoal, and on user cancel. Never drop a different goal. The post-verdict auto-clear is exempt — its goal is already complete, and a completed goal is never dropped.

The runtime does not make these transitions transactional: gjc autoresearch clear and canonical skill handoff do not drop an inline goal for the agent, user cancellation can preserve an active goal, and the generic runtime does not itself prevent a caller from dropping a completed goal. Before a manual clear or handoff, drop the matching goal explicitly when the turn still permits tool calls; after cancellation or a failed handoff, re-enter, inspect goal({"op":"get"}), and clean up only a matching nonterminal goal. An unrelated or unreadable Ultragoal state can also reject generic goal operations; do not bypass that guard or clear mission state early.

Goal mode never authorizes implementation: the mission remains research-only (findings, evidence, run records, verdict), and the nudge loop must never be used to start product-code changes.

Evidence sources interleave

Web research and data/environment experimentation are not separately gated tracks. Inside one mission they mix freely: a web finding motivates an experiment, an experiment's result triggers the next web search, and both land in the same mission ledger and the same final verdict. The mode decides which evidence sources exist, not when they may be used.

The loop

The mission runs in two phases.

Phase 1 — build the harness

Use an existing benchmark command or a research-only harness artifact explicitly approved for the mission. It must:

• exit 0 on success and non-zero on failure;
• print the primary metric as a single line METRIC <name>=<value>, and any secondary metrics as additional METRIC <name>=<value> lines;
• run the same workload deterministically (no live network, no time-of-day dependencies, fixed seeds where applicable).

Do not edit product source, manifests, dependencies, or benchmark binaries. When a useful benchmark requires a code or harness change, record that limitation as a caveat and route the change through the normal approval-gated implementation path. Validate the existing command by running it and confirming it exits 0 and emits at least one METRIC line. Output may also carry ASI key=value learning lines.

Phase 2 — iterate

Iterate existing experiments with baseline/keep/discard discipline. Log every run: keep when the primary metric improves, discard when it regresses or stays flat, crash when the run fails, checks_failed when validation fails. Flag suspect runs (reward-hacked or invalid) so they are excluded from baseline and best-metric math. This workflow does not create branches, commit changes, or revert files because it never changes product code.

Persistent Python

The python tool provides a persistent session REPL: variables, imports, and loaded data survive across calls. It is available without an active mission, uses the distinct python:<session-id> kernel owner, and appends every execution to the session JSONL transcript. Clearing its kernel is an action on the same tool (action: "clear"); session cleanup also disposes it.

Completion

The mission ends on one mission-level structured verdict: status (structured data, not a pinned enum), evidence[], caveats[], and the evaluator identity. The verdict is self-issued by default. An optional critic pass records a separate evaluator identity on the verdict (critic_receipt), distinct from the mission agent's. The verdict is best-effort, not a rigid per-lane checklist: missing lanes surface as caveats, not automatic failure. Use status.disposition: "inconclusive" for an explicitly non-terminal verdict; the mission stays open for follow-up rather than being closed as finished. Only status.disposition: "conclusive" is terminal for the mission artifact; after the matching goal pass completes, the agent requests gjc autoresearch clear as the next cleanup step (see Goal mode (nudge until verdict)).

Artifacts

• .gjc/_session-{sessionid}/autoresearch/ — mission artifact, append-only JSONL ledger, session-scoped run records (plus the TUI run-table dashboard).
• The ledger appends mission_created, mode_set, run_logged, verdict_issued, critic_recorded, and mission_cleared events; verdict and critic receipts ride on their events as structured data.
• Persist everything through gjc autoresearch; never hand-edit .gjc/ (no direct write/edit/ast_edit against .gjc/ paths without an explicit force override).
• On interruption, resume via gjc autoresearch read --json; do not read or edit .gjc/_session-{sessionid}/autoresearch/ files directly.

Boundary

Autoresearch produces research findings and a verdict; it never implements. Downstream implementation goes through the normal approval-gated path (planning → pending approval → explicitly approved execution).

Ending a mission

Two exits, both one step: These exits cover pre-verdict and inconclusive missions — a conclusive verdict requests the same clear sequence from the agent after its matching goal pass completes.

• Hand off to planning/clarification: when the turn still permits tools, drop this mission's matching nonterminal goal first, then invoke /skill:ralplan, /skill:deep-interview, or /skill:ultragoal — autoresearch is handoff-ready at any phase (intake/research/verdict), and the skill tool performs the atomic workflow-state handoff itself, not an atomic goal-state cleanup. No gjc state preparation is needed.
• Finalize only: gjc autoresearch clear retires the mission artifact and its working set, appends mission_cleared to the ledger, and marks the workflow complete — no handoff target required.

Neither command or handoff automatically drops an inline goal: explicitly drop this mission's matching nonterminal goal before a manual exit when possible, and after cancellation or failed cleanup re-enter and reconcile it. The post-verdict auto-clear never drops its goal because that goal is already complete — see Goal mode (nudge until verdict).