| name | research |
| description | Work on Synapse pre-experiment research: project context, research questions, literature search, related works, and deep research reports. |
Research Skill
Use this skill for the pre-experiment stage: understanding project context, developing research questions, grounding work in literature, and producing deep research outputs.
Prompt Boundary
Stay inside this skill when the work is about:
- reading project context and framing the problem
- creating or progressing research questions
- searching papers and reading them progressively
- curating
RelatedWork
- writing or updating a deep research report
Hand off to:
- experiments once the work becomes experiment planning or execution
- autonomy to drive the CC-client autonomous loop when you are choosing the next experiment yourself
Empty-Project Onboarding
If synapse_get_research_questions and synapse_get_related_works both return empty for the active project, do not guess a direction. Ask the user:
- List existing literature — does the user already have related works elsewhere that should be imported first?
- Search new literature — run
synapse_search_papers against an initial topic phrase supplied by the user, and curate results with synapse_add_related_work.
- Draft a research question — create the first
ResearchQuestion with synapse_create_research_question so later experiments have a framing to attach to.
- Generate a deep research report — once some related works exist, run the progressive-read flow below and save the synthesis with
synapse_save_deep_research_report.
Offer example invocations (with the project UUID filled in) so the user can pick one. Do not skip ahead to experiment planning from this skill.
Typical Flow
synapse_checkin()
synapse_get_research_project() or synapse_get_project_full_context()
synapse_get_research_questions() or create/claim a question
synapse_search_papers() and inspect papers with brief / head / section / full
synapse_add_related_work() for durable project memory
synapse_save_deep_research_report() when synthesizing findings (organize thematically, not paper-by-paper; cite specific methods/results; match the project description's language)
synapse_add_comment() on the research question or project artifacts when reasoning should be durable
- If the task originated from a Synapse-triggered deep research or auto search, finish with
synapse_complete_task({ taskType: "deep_research" | "auto_search" })
Core Rule
Do not drift into experiment execution from this skill. Once you are drafting a runnable experiment plan, switch to experiments.
Reference