| name | framing-research-questions |
| description | You MUST use this before any data analysis or investigation - before exploring a dataset, loading or profiling data, running a model, computing a statistic, or testing an idea, and before any outcome data is touched |
Framing Research Questions Into Investigations
Help turn a fuzzy research interest into a precise, falsifiable question with explicit hypotheses, the data required, and what would count as an answer — through natural collaborative dialogue.
Start by understanding the context (the data on hand, the domain, what your human partner already knows), then ask questions one at a time to sharpen the interest. Once you understand what is being investigated, present the framing and get approval.
Do NOT load the dataset, compute any statistic, fit any model, plot any outcome, or invoke any execution skill until you have presented a research framing and your human partner has approved it. This applies to EVERY investigation regardless of perceived simplicity.
Why this gate is strict for science specifically: Looking at outcomes before the question and predictions are fixed contaminates a confirmatory analysis. Once you have seen the data, you cannot un-see it, and every later choice (which test, which subgroup, which cutoff) becomes suspect. Framing first is what keeps a result confirmatory rather than a story told after the fact.
What this gate does NOT forbid: measuring whether the computation can run — assembly size, peak memory, wall clock, iteration counts, convergence behavior. Those are provenance and structure, not outcomes. Resource measurement never contaminates a confirmatory analysis, because the outcome variable is untouched.
When Feasibility Is Unknown
If it is not yet known whether the computation can run at all — an unbenchmarked solver, an unproven pipeline, a configuration whose memory or wall-clock ceiling is estimated rather than measured — say so during framing and offer feasibility mode:
"Whether this can run at scale is unknown, and the design depends on the answer. I can establish feasibility first — a minimal runner, three scaling probes, one exploratory campaign — and defer the survey, plan, and pre-registration until we know what is runnable. Nothing produced that way can support a confirmatory claim. Or we proceed with the standard sequence. Which?"
