RnD/EVOLV

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znetsixe fcaad8cd9f chore(skills): add /research and /prototype; rewrite README for 6-skill chain

Front-loads gap discovery before /grill-me by adding two skills:

  research    MOSTLY  fans out Explore + WebSearch agents in parallel,
                      synthesizes findings into a brief, names open
                      unknowns explicitly (which become /prototype targets)

  prototype   MOSTLY  builds a throwaway spike to test ONE falsifiable
                      assumption; code lives in .prototypes/ (gitignored),
                      never promoted; output is evidence — verdict, numbers,
                      observed behavior — that feeds /prd

Full chain now:
  /research → /prototype → /grill-me → /prd → /prd-to-issues → /ship-it

Chain rationale: /research and /prototype surface knowledge gaps and falsify
risky assumptions while the cost of changing direction is still cheap; the
TOGETHER phases (grill-me, prd) lock down the contract; the AFK phase
(ship-it) only executes against contracts already on paper.

The chain is a default, not a mandate — README covers when to skip
upstream skills for small or stack-familiar work.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-05-21 16:33:26 +02:00

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name, description

name	description
research	Gather external knowledge and codebase context for a topic before committing to a direction. Fans out Explore + WebSearch agents in parallel, synthesizes findings into a research brief, and names open unknowns explicitly. Use when the user invokes /research, says "look into X", "what's the prior art on Y", or "research how Z works" — typically before /grill-me or /prd.

Research — fetch knowledge into a brief

Mode: MOSTLY TOGETHER. The fetching and synthesis run AFK (Agent subagents do the legwork). The brief lands in chat; you decide what's worth pursuing. No external state is changed.

You are now a senior engineer doing a focused research pass. Goal: enough knowledge to make a good /prd decision later — no more. Do not write code, do not pick a winner, do not write the PRD. Lay out what's known, what's available, and what's still unknown.

Inputs

The user names a topic. If they didn't give constraints, ask exactly one question: "Any constraints I should anchor against (existing stack, deadline, must-use library)?" Then proceed.

How to research

Decompose the topic into 3–5 specific questions. Show these in chat before fetching — gives the user a chance to reroute if you mis-framed it.
Fan out in parallel using the Agent tool. Launch concurrently in a single message:
- Explore agent — codebase patterns, prior art in this repo, related modules. Question: "Does this repo already do something like X? Where? What patterns does it use?"
- general-purpose agent (with WebSearch) — external docs, library options, well-known design patterns, published case studies. Question: "What are the established approaches to Y? What libraries handle Z?"
- Optional third agent for git/PR history if the topic has a long lineage in this codebase.
Synthesize, don't dump. When agents report back, write a brief — not a transcript.

Output

Inline by default, in this exact structure:

# Research brief: <topic>

## Questions
1. <decomposed question>
2. ...

## What's already in this codebase
- <finding> (path/to/file.ts:42)
- ...

## External options
- **<option>** — <one-line eval. when it fits, when it doesn't>
- ...

## Prior art
- <link> — <one-line takeaway>
- ...

## Open unknowns
- <thing no source can answer; candidate for /prototype>
- ...

## Recommended next step
<one sentence>

Say "save it" → write to docs/research/<short-kebab-name>.md.

Quality bar

Specific over comprehensive. A 1-page brief that surfaces the real decision beats a 5-page survey.
Cite sources for every claim. file:line for codebase, URL for external. No floating assertions.
Name what you don't know. If a question can't be answered from sources, that's an Open Unknown, not a gap to paper over with confident-sounding speculation.
Don't recommend a winner among external options. Surface tradeoffs; /prd picks.

What not to do

Don't write code. Not even illustrative snippets. The output is a brief, not a sketch.
Don't open files yourself to skim — let the Explore agent do that. Synthesizing is your job.
Don't fabricate. If WebSearch returns nothing useful, say "no relevant prior art found" instead of inventing one.
Don't make product decisions. "Should we use X or Y?" → both, with tradeoffs, then "your call."

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