| name | research |
| description | Dispatches a researcher agent to investigate best practices, compliance requirements, technology comparisons, and domain knowledge. Use when a skill needs external research to inform decisions — compliance frameworks (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI), technology trade-offs, competitive analysis, or industry best practices. Wrapper skill for the researcher agent. |
| metadata | {"type":"dispatcher","agents":[{"name":"researcher","file":"agents/researcher.md","shared":true,"consumers":["create-spec"]}]} |
| allowed-tools | Read Glob Grep Bash |
Research
Dispatch a researcher agent to investigate a specific topic and return structured findings. This skill acts as the canonical entry point for research and is invoked by other skills (create-spec, and future skills like analyze-spec) rather than used standalone.
Single-consumer exception: Currently only consumed by create-spec. Kept as a dispatcher in anticipation of future consumers (feature-dev, docs-manager). Per the Agent Placement Rule, this would normally remain private until a second consumer appears.
Inputs
This skill expects the calling skill to provide:
- Research topic — the specific subject to investigate (e.g., "GDPR data retention requirements", "WebSocket vs SSE for real-time updates")
- Context — why this research is needed, what project or spec it informs
- Specific questions — 1-3 focused questions the research should answer
- Depth level — how detailed the findings should be (brief summary vs. comprehensive analysis)
Agents
| Agent | File | Dependencies |
|---|
| researcher | agents/researcher.md | none |
Workflow
- Receive the research topic, context, specific questions, and depth level from the calling skill
- Dispatch the researcher agent with:
- The topic and specific questions
- The project context (spec name, feature description, etc.)
- The desired depth level
- Instructions to return structured findings when complete
- Collect and return the researcher's structured findings to the calling skill
Execution Strategy
If subagent dispatch is available: Dispatch the researcher as a subagent, passing the contents of agents/researcher.md as the task instructions along with the research context. The subagent works independently and returns structured findings.
If subagent dispatch is not available: Read agents/researcher.md and follow its instructions directly. Use the provided topic, context, and questions as input. Produce the structured findings inline before returning control to the calling skill.
