# Deep Research > Use when the user asks to research a topic in depth, map a competitive/market landscape, run a multi-source investigation, or "fan out" parallel research agents — anything where many findings must be gathered and then NOT lost. Enforces durable, detail-preserving research (write full findings to disk; keep a full appendix beside the synthesis). - Skill: `zernie/deep-research` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add zernie/deep-research` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/zernie/deep-research/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Research & Search - Author: zernie (https://skillmd.com/u/zernie) - Updated: 2026-09-09 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/zernie/deep-research --- # Deep research — gather wide, lose nothing The failure mode this skill exists to prevent: a big parallel research fan-out gathers 80–100K tokens of detail, each subagent returns a **trimmed summary**, the orchestrator **compresses again** into a short brief, and the **raw findings live only in ephemeral agent transcripts** (scratchpad task outputs) that vanish when the container is reclaimed. Net: expensive research → a thin artifact, detail gone. Don't do that. ## The rule: two durable artifacts, never just one Every nontrivial research effort produces, and SAVES to disk: 1. **A synthesis** — the brief / answer (tables, thesis, recommendation). 2. **A full appendix** — the per-source / per-company / per-angle DETAIL (raw numbers, funding histories, surfaces, dates, **verbatim source URLs**) the synthesis compressed. If the saved synthesis is dramatically smaller than what was gathered, the appendix is how you reconcile that — the detail must land **somewhere durable**, not only in chat or a transcript. "I summarized it in chat" is not saved. ## Running a fan-out 1. **Plan the angles** — one subagent per distinct angle (company, source class, sub-question). Tell the user which model each runs on and why (the subagent-model-note rule). 2. **Mandate write-to-disk in the subagent prompt.** Every research subagent must WRITE its full findings to a durable file (e.g. the session scratchpad dir, one file per angle) **with sources verbatim**, and return only a short pointer + the headline findings. Do NOT rely on the agent's returned summary as the record — it is trimmed by construction and its transcript is ephemeral. 3. **Capture sources verbatim** — every claim carries [number] [source URL] [date] [reported vs estimate]. URLs are the first thing lost in compression; keep them. 4. **Synthesize from the files, not from memory** — read back the written files to build the synthesis, so nothing silently drops. 5. **Save both artifacts before declaring done** — commit/write the synthesis AND the appendix. Then it's saved. ## Where to save - **Technical research about shipped behaviour** → a `docs/` page if a user needs it to act, otherwise a contributor note cited from `CLAUDE.md` keyFiles so it isn't an orphan doc. Which tier is decided by `public-vs-internal-docs` and `doc-tiers`. - **Competitive, market, pricing, go-to-market or roadmap research** → **not into this repository, in any directory.** This repo is public and `no-product-strategy-here` is unconditional: a deleted file stays in history and on other branches. Hand the findings back in the answer and let the human place them somewhere private. - When in doubt which, ask — but never let "unsure where" become "saved nowhere." ## Don't - Don't present a one-paragraph chat summary as the deliverable for a 15-agent fan-out. - Don't trim sources/URLs/dates to make the brief shorter — that detail goes in the appendix. - Don't leave the only full copy in an ephemeral transcript or scratchpad you didn't commit.