| name | Researcher Rigor Gate |
| slug | researcher-rigor-gate |
| description | Use before plan submission, major plan revision, and major stage transitions. Verify alignment, feasibility, rigor, completeness, and prevent unjustified regressions to earlier workflow phases. |
| allowed-tools | ["readFile","grep","searchArticles","readPaper"] |
Researcher Rigor Gate
This skill is the main scientific quality gate for the automated research commander.
Four Required Checks
Alignment
- Does the active plan actually match the user’s current confirmed goal?
- Are outdated assumptions or rejected directions still leaking into the workflow?
Feasibility
- Are assignments compatible with the responsible worker roles?
- Are resources, compute, and time nodes realistic?
- Are dependencies satisfiable in the current state?
Rigor
- Are baselines, controls, metrics, and validation logic explicit enough to reproduce?
- Are conclusions proportional to the available evidence?
Completeness
- Are any mandatory stages or handoffs missing?
- Are there unaddressed blockers, contradictions, or risk items?
Anti-Regression Rule
Do not recommend broad early-stage restarts once the workflow has reached a later phase such as experiment design, implementation, execution, synthesis, or final reporting, unless:
- a specific blocking gap is identified;
- a narrower correction is not sufficient; and
- the change is surfaced to the user as a material workflow revision.
Prefer targeted supplementation over phrases like "go back to round 1 literature search."
