| name | technical-research |
| description | Research a technology, library, API, or approach to inform an architecture or implementation decision. Use when the user says 'research this technology', 'evaluate this library', or 'investigate this approach'. |
Technical Research Workflow
Goal
Produce a structured technical evaluation that gives the team enough information to make a confident build / buy / adopt / reject decision.
Step 1: Define the Research Question
Ask:
- What technology, library, or approach are we evaluating?
- What problem is it solving?
- What are the alternatives we should compare against?
- Who will use the decision — architect, developer, or product?
Step 2: Evaluation Dimensions
Assess the technology across:
Maturity & Ecosystem
- Version, release cadence, age of project
- GitHub stars, downloads/week, last commit
- Community size (Stack Overflow, Discord, forums)
- Commercial backing vs. community-only
Fit Assessment
- Does it solve the stated problem? Fully / partially / needs workaround?
- Known integrations with our current stack
- License compatibility
Performance & Scale
- Benchmark data (if available) or credible community reports
- Known limits: throughput, latency, memory footprint
- Scale stories: who uses it at production scale?
Security
- CVE history — any critical vulnerabilities in last 2 years?
- Active security patch cadence
- Compliance considerations (GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, etc.)
Developer Experience
- Time to first working example
- Quality of documentation
- Local dev setup complexity
Cost
- Licence cost (open source, commercial, seat-based, usage-based)
- Hosting / infrastructure cost implications
Step 3: Comparison Table
| Dimension | Option A | Option B | Option C |
|---|
| Maturity | | | |
| Fit | | | |
| Performance | | | |
| Security | | | |
| Developer XP | | | |
| Cost | | | |
| Overall | | | |
Step 4: Recommendation
State clearly:
- Recommended option and why
- Conditions / caveats that could change the recommendation
- Risks to monitor if adopted
- Suggested next step (spike, POC, ADR, direct adoption)
Step 5: Output
Save to {docsPath}/analysis/technical-research-{slug}.md.
