research-brief-skill

name	research-brief-skill
description	Build concise, decision-ready research briefs from notes and source material when the user needs a grounded summary.

Purpose

Use this skill to turn scattered notes, links, transcripts, or source documents into a short research brief that is easy to act on.

Inputs

• Raw notes or transcripts
• Source links or attached documents
• The decision, question, or audience the brief should support

Workflow

1. Inventory the available inputs and identify the decision or question the brief must answer.
2. If the notes are messy, normalize them with scripts/normalize_notes.sh before drafting.
3. Extract the core claims, risks, unknowns, and source gaps.
4. Use references/source-evaluation.md to classify evidence quality and freshness.
5. Draft the brief with the required section order.
6. Verify that every non-obvious claim is backed by a source or labeled as inference.

Output Contract

The brief should contain these sections in order:

1. Executive Summary
2. Key Findings
3. Risks And Unknowns
4. Open Questions
5. Source Log

Guardrails

• Separate sourced facts from interpretation.
• Call out stale or weak evidence.
• Do not smooth over disagreements between sources.
• If the material is too thin to support a conclusion, say so plainly.

References

• Read references/source-evaluation.md when weighing credibility or freshness.
• Use scripts/normalize_notes.sh when the input is long, noisy, or inconsistently formatted.