| name | research |
| description | Research a topic within this repository's concept and return structured findings. Use when: looking up items (events, people, works, discoveries, etc.) within the concept; crawling authoritative sources; verifying facts and attribution; gathering facts before deciding whether to create a knowledge-table row or a dedicated file. Concept-agnostic — reads subject/scope/source_strategy from seed.md. Does NOT write files on its own — use add-topic for that. |
| argument-hint | A topic within the repo concept (e.g. an event, person, work, or discovery). |
Research
What This Skill Does
Given a topic within the repository's concept, this skill:
- Reads the Concept Definition in seed.md to learn the
subject, scope, and source_strategy.
- Fetches content from authoritative web sources.
- Extracts key facts: identifying detail, people, context, significance, category.
- Returns structured findings (it does not write repository files).
Procedure
Step 1 — Load the Concept
Read concept from seed.md. Note subject, scope, source_strategy, and the taxonomy categories. All research is bounded by these.
Step 2 — Identify Sources
Per concept.source_strategy, gather at least two authoritative sources (one encyclopedic such as Wikipedia/Britannica; one specialist where possible). Use a web search/fetch with a query like "<topic> <subject> significance".
Step 3 — Extract Key Facts
Capture:
- Identifier: exact date, value, or detail anchoring the item to the
subject.
- People: key figures (name, role).
- What: the event, work, or development.
- Significance: why it matters.
- Category: the matching slug from
concept.taxonomy.
Step 4 — Format Output
Return structured markdown — a knowledge-table row and/or the body of a dedicated file per content.instructions.md. Do not write files; hand findings back to the caller (e.g. the add-topic skill).
Step 5 — Verify
- Confirm the topic falls within
concept.scope.
- Note any source conflicts and cite both.
- Ensure sources are publicly accessible (no paywalled URLs).
Notes
- If a topic only partially relates to the concept, focus on the in-scope portion.
- Prefer an encyclopedic source as the primary crawl target; cross-check with a specialist source.
