Agent skill · research science · juliusbrussee
research
Gather external knowledge the spec needs and distill it into §R — the durable research log — so build grounds in facts instead of hallucinating library behavior. Each finding cites a source; unsourced claims are flagged, never written as fact. Triggers when a spec decision hinges on a library/API/best practice the agent is unsure of, when the user says "research this", "what's the best lib for…", "check current best practice", or invokes /ck:research. Defers the §R write to the spec skill.
Why this skill is useful
Provides a structured approach to gathering and distilling external knowledge, ensuring sourced information is integrated into decision-making.
What it needs
About 2k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-06-18. 1,134 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
research — external knowledge → §R Every finding cites a source. No source → flag it ?, never write a guess as fact. "Process without library context gives you well-organized hallucinations." Build invents a plausible-but-wrong API & §B fills with avoidable bugs. Research is the external oracle: pull the real fact once, log it caveman, never re-derive. WHEN TO RESEARCH A §C/§I/§V decision hinges on a lib, API, version, or pattern you are unsure of. You are about to assume how an external dependency behaves. The idea touches a domain with real prior art (auth, payments, crypto, rate-limit). /grill parked a ? that the outside world must answer. Skip when the build touches only code you already wrote. Research scales to the unknown, ⊥ to habit. FOUR STEPS 1. SCOPE Turn the unknown into 1-3 concrete questions. Vague "research auth" → "JWT lib for Node ESM, maintained?" + "refresh-token rotation: current best practice?". A scoped question gets a citable answer; a vague one gets an essay. 2. GATHER Use web search / docs tools. Prefer primary sources: official docs, the repo, the RFC, the paper. Two independent sources beat one confident blog. For a big sweep, spawn a sub-agent so the raw pages never touch this context — it returns only the distilled finding + source. 3. DISTILL Crush each answer to one caveman line + its source. Drop the prose. The §R row is the memory; the tab you read is not. R3 refresh token rotate on use, revoke family on reuse-detect datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6819#section-5.2.2.3 4. HAND OFF Emit the §R rows & hand to the spec skill to append. If a finding changes a constraint or interface, note the §C/§I edit for spec too. Research proposes; spec writes. SOURCE DISCIPLINE Cite a URL, repo, RFC, or paper per row. Verbatim identifiers/versions. Could not verify → write the row but flag ? in the finding & say so. An unverified claim labeled honestly is fine; one disguised as fact is a future §B. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills juliusbrussee/research