research

name	research
description	Operating guide for running a `dispatch_type: research` subagent dispatch: shape it, find the evidence, run it, gate it, and write research.md + findings.md. Routed here from domainspec-subagents-strategy.

research — operating guide for dispatch_type: research

What this is. You are running a research dispatch: a fan-out of subagents that finds what already exists and can be used, then records it.

What is produced. research.md + findings.md in the working_folder, carrying a verdict on every candidate. That is the whole deliverable.

The procedure. Shape it → Find the evidence → Run it → Gate it → Write the outputs → Close.

1. Shape it

Pick the agents, their topology, and their tensions.

Roles — each guards one failure mode; no agent guards two:

role	guards against	model
explorer	monoculture — each generates under one tensioned angle	lighter — sweeps are mechanical
skeptic	folklore / vacuity — each attacks one named gate	heavier — adversarial work is hard
writer	"great research, no record" — the synthesizer, conventionally a single writer	heavier for heavy synthesis
auditor	"passed because nothing was checked" — meta-evaluates downstream of the reviewers, owns the verdict	mid — checking, not generating

Model is guidance, not law — chosen per agent by task difficulty, validated at the confirm gate.

Topology — the canonical shape:

explorers (n 2–4, pairwise tensioned)
   │ sequential
synthesizer (1 writer) ◀──zig-zag──▶ reviewers (skeptics; robot_talks when the
   ▲                          │        question needs confrontation, not collection)
   └┄┄┄ feedback (conditional) ┄┘

The feedback back-edge exists only when there's a reviewer/auditor group AND material may be missing — never by default. An optional auditor group placed downstream of the reviewers is the natural dedicated final_approver.

Tension — classify every angle on four axes: methodology (empirical / formal / adversarial / historical / computational), source-corpus, attack-vector (the skeptic gate), temporal-prior (modern-only / historical-lineage / mixed).

• Reject before proposing if: all angles share one core noun phrase; all explorers share one methodology or corpus; all skeptics share one gate.
• Green-light when: for every explorer pair you can write "a_i runs [X], a_j runs [Y] on the [axis] axis; a bias in a_i would be exposed by a_j" — and ≥2 distinct axes appear across the group.

2. Find the evidence

Each explorer retrieves — it does not recall. A claim rests on a source the explorer can point to (a URL, a file path, a citation), never on model memory. Recall is a starting hypothesis; the retrieved source is the proof.

Where each explorer looks is set by its tension axes (see Shape it). source-corpus and temporal-prior assign each explorer a distinct search surface so the group covers the space instead of overlapping — e.g. one sweeps current literature, one the foundational lineage, one the internal repos for prior art.

Two directions, both run before a candidate is judged:

• External — locate with WebSearch, then read the actual source with WebFetch. A snippet is not a read. This is where papers and references come from.
• Internal (ownership) — search our own repos with Grep/Glob (and the inventory skill where installed) for an existing owner. This is what the precedent gate stands on: "already owned here" is retrieved, not assumed.

Each explorer returns the locator per candidate — what it found and where. A sweep that names its surface and tools and comes back empty certifies precedent-clean; an unnamed "found nothing" certifies nothing.

3. Run it

Spawn each group's agents with the Agent tool — ALL agents of a group in ONE message, so they run in parallel. Each agent's initial_prompt is its launch prompt.

Schedule groups by dependency: a group is READY when every group with a sequential/zig-zag edge into it has produced what it must respond to (zig-zag counts only in its from→to direction — the from endpoint opens the exchange). Launch all READY groups concurrently; independent chains run side by side. feedback edges never count as dependencies; a sheet with no connections declares its groups independent. Declared order is a narration tiebreak only.

4. Write the outputs

Results land in the working_folder (a docs path, confirmed at the gate). Which files depends on how many agents ran:

agents	files
2 or more	research.md + findings.md
1	findings.md only

• research.md — the agent returns pasted in verbatim. The strategist writes it by hand; it's transcription, so never dispatch an agent to do it. → How: the domainspec-research-writing skill (.claude/skills/custom/domainspec-research-writing.md)
• findings.md — the synthesis that turns those returns into usable claims. Every load-bearing claim cites the return it rests on. The strategist writes it, or hands it to a writer agent. → How: the domainspec-findings-writing skill (.claude/skills/custom/domainspec-findings-writing.md)

Findings shape — one verdict row per candidate. Ownership is a label, not a verdict: the owner column is always filled (a citation, or precedent-clean), and being owned never puts KILL in the verdict column.

5. Close

Close with the one-line answer to the dispatch goal. The dispatch is resolved when the final_approver accepts — and for research, acceptance includes checking that the findings citations hold.

Standing rules

1. Claim ≤ proof — for research, demote, never inflate.
2. Keystone claims carry their collapse-test inline — the one fact that would zero the claim, on the same line.
3. Precedent-first — no novel verdict ships before a precedent skeptic ran. A found owner is not a kill; it relabels the candidate build-from-owned (cite, deploy, never claim novel), and every artifact touching an owned result carries its owner label.
4. Read-only by default — research agents write only into working_folder, never the source tree.

Names

Draw agent_name from telemetry/agents/agent-pool.yaml (ordered role_fit). Prefer the primary role_fit entry and a field fit to the corpus. Never reuse a name within one dispatch (the skeptic/auditor prohibition is the hard case). Never invent a name outside the pool.

See also

• Router — .claude/skills/domainspec-subagents-strategy/SKILL.md: triggers, human gate, anti-bias principle, lifecycle, final_approver, exit_reason vocabulary. Nothing here overrides it.
• Record/sheet mechanics + field definitions — register-dispatch (.claude/skills/register-dispatch/SKILL.md): the two appends, the appender, validation, enums.