lab

name	lab
description	Open an interactive exploration session over the research corpus — traverse MIF relationships from a seed concept or entity, develop and stress-test hypotheses against the finding set, and reason across topics. Use this skill whenever the user wants to discuss, explore, or riff on their research rather than just retrieve it: 'explore topic X', 'what does my research suggest about Y', 'develop a hypothesis about Z', 'interrogate the findings on W', 'think through this with my research', 'brainstorm from the corpus'.
version	0.4.2
argument-hint	[--seed <urn:mif:id>] [--hypothesis "<claim>"] [--interrogate] [--namespace <ns>]
allowed-tools	Read, Bash, Grep, Glob, Skill

lab — explore and reason over the corpus

A thinking partner grounded in the MIF substrate. Where /search retrieves and /discover audits, this skill reasons: it walks the MIF-native graph from a seed, grounds a conversation in findings, and helps form and test hypotheses.

It stays inside the corpus: it never invents findings, and it treats every finding as a pointer to a primary source, not as ground truth. When a claim matters, recommend re-reading the cited source.

Data

A finding is a MIF concept at reports/<topic>/findings/*.json: @id, title, content, tags, entities[], typed relationships[], citations[], and extensions.harness (dimension, verification verdict). The graph (knowledge-graph.json) is the navigable index of those concepts and their edges. Use the sample at reports/_meta/sample-session/ when exploring.

Modes

Default is open exploration. The flags are postures, not silos.

• --seed <id> — start from a concept/entity and traverse its relationships
• --hypothesis "<claim>" — develop and stress-test a falsifiable claim
• --interrogate — invert the burden: hunt the corpus's weak points
• --namespace <ns> — scope reasoning to one topic

Traversal from a seed

Walk outward from a seed urn:mif: id along the graph's typed edges — one hop gives the seed's direct neighborhood (supports, contradicts, derived-from, mentions):

jq --arg seed "SEED_ID" '
  { seed: $seed,
    out: [ .edges[] | select(.source == $seed) | { type, target, strength, via } ],
    in:  [ .edges[] | select(.target == $seed) | { type, source: .source, via } ] }' \
  reports/_meta/sample-session/knowledge-graph.json

Follow supports/derived-from chains to build the case for an idea, and contradicts edges to find the tension. Resolve each target id back to its finding (title, content, citations) before discussing it.

Hypothesis mode

Run the pipeline: Orient → Surface → Form → Corroborate → Disconfirm → Weigh → Gaps. The non-negotiable step is Disconfirm: before any verdict, check for contradicts edges, findings whose extensions.harness.verification.verdict is weakened/falsified/quarantined, and low-trust provenance. A hypothesis never tested against the disconfirming evidence is incomplete.

Verdict is exactly one of: supported | contested | unsupported | untestable-with-corpus. Cite every supporting finding by @id and its source citations[].url. Quarantined or falsified material may appear only as disconfirming evidence, never as support.

Interrogation mode

The whole job is finding what is weak. Surface, in order: findings with a non-survived verdict (name each by id), contradicts edges, low-confidence provenance (provenance.confidence), citations that are not externally resolvable, and aging created dates. Produce a ledger of supporting vs disconfirming findings; weak/falsified ids go only in the disconfirming column.

Evidence discipline

• Findings are pointers, not authorities — cite the @id and the source URL.
• Disconfirming material stays disconfirming — a falsified or quarantined finding is never cited as support.
• Non-survived verdicts are tripwires — surface them whenever an affected finding enters the conversation.
• Say "the corpus doesn't cover this" when it doesn't — gaps are findings too; hand them to /discover --gaps or /start --augment.

Handoffs

Conversation surfaces	Hand off to
A pure retrieval need	/search <query>
A coverage gap or thin dimension	/discover --gaps or /start --augment <dimension> --topic <topic>
A relationship/visualization question	/graph
A claim needing adversarial web verification	/falsify
An idea worth becoming new research	/start

Prerequisites

• The corpus findings dir, research-index.json, and knowledge-graph.json. If the graph is missing: bash scripts/build-graph.sh <findings-dir>.

Examples

/lab --namespace harness/example-topic
/lab --seed urn:mif:concept:harness:kg-copier-0001
/lab --hypothesis "A living template beats a one-time snapshot"
/lab --interrogate