/lamina-research

name: lamina-research
description: "Plan and synthesize evidence-grounded product research. Use when deciding what evidence is needed, designing actor walkthroughs, grounding claims in a repository or live product, analyzing user-provided references, modeling users and tasks, or communicating findings without inventing data. Use lamina-evaluation instead to judge a built product, and lamina-ux to design interaction behavior."

Lamina Research

Reference-loading protocol

1. Match the request's primary research decision to one row below. 2. Open that linked reference before answering. Add another only when a second decision materially changes the answer; do not preload the directory. 3. Start the response with `Using lamina-research: <topic path(s)>` so the selected evidence lens is auditable.

Topic index

| Decision signal | Read | Adds | |---|---|---| | Need to plan who or what a verification pass will exercise | [Simulation Planning](references/research-planning.md) | actors, probes, parallel groups, and success criteria | | Need to distinguish known evidence, assumptions, and evidence gaps | [Evidence Scoping](references/research-scoping.md) | source inventory and confidence labels | | Need to merge several walkthrough results into non-duplicative findings | [Simulation Synthesis](references/research-synthesis.md) | clustering, root causes, severity, and traceability | | Need to hand research findings to a designer or implementer | [Findings Communication](references/research-communication.md) | reproducible evidence and actionable finding structure | | Need to inspect an existing repository, running product, capture, or ticket | [Live Product Grounding](references/field-research.md) | grounded surface and behavior claims | | Need to define what each actor should attempt in a walkthrough | [Actor-Walk Script Design](references/interview-design.md) | goals, starting state, stress probes, and observable success | | Need to record a walkthrough so another person can reproduce it | [Walkthrough Evidence](references/interview-documentation.md) | per-step expected/observed evidence | | Need to learn from a user-supplied competitor, screenshot, or reference | [Reference Patterns](references/competitive-analysis.md) | borrowed patterns and deliberate differences without market theater | | Need to define evidence-backed Personas, Actors, permissions, or constraints | [User Modeling](references/user-modeling.md) | provenance-aware user and authority models | | Need to decompose an actor goal into operations and workflow steps | [Task Analysis](references/task-analysis.md) | outcome-oriented task structure and working sets |

Working rule

Use the smallest sufficient reference set. Common pairs are evidence scoping + live grounding before a study, and actor-walk design + walkthrough evidence for a reproducible session. Preserve permissions, states, failures, recovery, relationships, and evidence limits. Route elsewhere only when another capability's decision materially changes the research plan.