| name | do.research |
| description | Plan and execute checkpointed deep research for technologies, concepts, papers, or complex questions. Use when the user asks for deep research, a literature review, evidence synthesis, or a durable research note in their DeepOrbit vault. |
Deep Research
Produce evidence-backed research while preserving progress in a Markdown plan. Runtime-native goals, trackers, or subagents may accelerate the work but are never required.
1. Establish context
- Run
deeporbit --vault "<vault>" rag "<topic>" to find related notes. If the CLI is unavailable, inspect 20_Projects, 30_Research, and 40_Wiki directly.
- Read
99_System/Prompts/Research_Sources.md when it exists.
- Identify the question, intended depth, existing knowledge, related project, and output language from
deeporbit.json.
- Ask only for choices that materially change the research.
2. Create a checkpoint plan
Write 90_Plans/Plan_YYYY-MM-DD_Research_<Topic>.md:
---
deeporbit_workflow: 1
workflow_id: research-<date>-<slug>
status: active
topic: <topic>
---
# Research Plan: <Topic>
## Goal
<Decision or understanding this work must enable>
## Existing knowledge
- Related notes: [[...]]
- Related project: [[...]]
## Checklist
- [ ] Search primary and official sources
- [ ] Search independent secondary sources
- [ ] Compare claims and record contradictions
- [ ] Draft the main research note
- [ ] Extract durable atomic concepts
- [ ] Verify citations, links, and completeness
Let the user review the plan when the scope is broad, expensive, or ambiguous. Otherwise continue.
3. Execute with checkpoints
- Work through the checklist in dependency order and mark each item immediately after it succeeds.
- Continue in the same turn while context and tool limits allow.
- If interrupted, reread the plan and resume at the first unchecked item.
- When the runtime exposes a Goal or Task Tracker, attach the plan's goal to it. Never store the only copy of progress in runtime state.
- Do not use external self-invocation extensions, headless loops, or completion-promise polling.
Prefer primary sources. For current facts, browse and cite. Record sources beside supported claims and state uncertainty or disagreement explicitly.
4. Write durable outputs
- Main note:
30_Research/<Area>/<Topic>/<Topic>.md
- Atomic concepts:
40_Wiki/<Category>/<Concept>.md
- Supporting files:
30_Research/<Area>/<Topic>/assets/
Use frontmatter at line 1 with type, created, area, tags, and status. Put related links in a final ## Related Reading section, not frontmatter. Keep atomic concepts focused.
5. Verify and finish
Before setting the plan to status: complete:
-
Every checklist item is checked.
-
Major claims have working sources.
-
Contradictions and limitations are visible.
-
Output files exist at the planned paths.
-
Wikilinks resolve or are intentionally marked as future concepts.
-
Set author: ai in frontmatter for every note you create; switch to author: mixed when substantially rewriting a human-authored note. Authorship lives in frontmatter only — never add visible badges.
Link the result from today's Daily Note. Open the main note using do.obsidian-open; inability to launch Obsidian is non-fatal.
