/research

name: research-with-sources
description: "Investigate a topic against preserved sources and write a draft-status research article under `research/` in a Knowledge Base project (the `knowledge-base` starter pack). Read when asked to research a topic, compare options, synthesize sources, gather evidence, or extend an existing research doc. Carries the full procedure: scan existing coverage, agree a research rubric, capture every source verbatim before analyzing, write the article incrementally so a crash never loses work, cite every claim, and link it back into the graph. Does not promote findings to canonical knowledge — that is the sibling `consolidate-notes` skill, after a decision lands."
compatibility: "Any agent host with the OpenKnowledge MCP server configured. Installed project-local by `ok seed --pack knowledge-base`."
type: Document
metadata:
  pack: "knowledge-base"
  author: "Inkeep"
  repository: "https://github.com/inkeep/open-knowledge-skills"

Research — gather sources and write provisional findings

> This skill is pack guidance. The platform `/open-knowledge` skill (read/write/preview/linking/grounding rules) still governs every markdown operation — this layers the procedure on top.

Conduct **evidence-driven research** on a topic and produce a provisional research article under `research/`. Provisional, not canonical: research articles capture findings, trade-offs, and open questions at a point in time. They are promoted to canonical articles via the `/consolidate-notes` skill only when decisions solidify.

The content directory is the resolved `content.dir` — read it with `config({ key: 'content.dir' })` if you don't already know it. Paths below are relative to it.

Three paths

• **Path A — Research article (DEFAULT):** A persistent provisional article with `status: draft` and an inline `sources:` frontmatter list pointing at raw sources captured via the ingest procedure. This is the default unless the user explicitly opts out.
• **Path B — Direct answer:** Findings delivered in conversation only. **Requires explicit user request** (e.g., "just tell me", "no doc needed", "quick answer").
• **Path C — Update existing research:** Surgical additions/corrections to an existing research article. Triggered when the user references an existing research doc or says "update/refresh/extend."

Path A is the default because provisional articles compound over time; spoken answers do not.

**Legacy reads:** Existing articles may use `status: provisional` and string paths under `sources:`. Treat those as draft research and source resources. Do not mass-rewrite them; new writes use the OKF shapes below.

Autonomy mode

| Mode | Behavior | How entered | |---|---|---| | **Supervised** (default) | Stop at the scoping gate for user rubric confirmation. Route coverage decisions interactively. | Default when a user drives the session. | | **Headless** | Auto-confirm rubric after proposing it. Auto-select routing decisions. Skip interactive prompts. All other gates (scan, analysis, validation, grounding) still enforced. | Explicit "don't wait for me", "just proceed", "run headless" — or non-interactive container environments. |

In headless mode, propose the rubric AND proceed immediately. Mark the Scoping task completed after proposing.

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Mandatory execution order

**Hard gates — do NOT skip ahead.** If you find yourself about to run a `WebFetch` or `WebSearch` without completing Steps 0-2, STOP — you skipped a gate.

1. **Step 0: Create workflow checkpoint tasks** — ALWAYS the first action. 2. **Step 1: Scan existing coverage + route** — scan the content directory for prior work; classify coverage; present options before new research begins. 3. **Step 2: Collaborative scoping** — propose a research rubric. In Supervised mode, STOP and WAIT for user confirmation before any external fetch. 4. **Step 3: Capture raw sources via ingest** — preserve before analyzing. 5. **Step 4: Read + analyze** — third-party/external by default; first-party codebase only when the user explicitly requests. 6. **Step 5: Write the research article** — Path A only. 7. **Step 6: Link aggressively + file valuable Q&A back**. 8. **Step 7: Validate** — frontmatter, dead-links, sources alignment. 9. **Step 8: Recap + follow-up directions**.

**Path B shortcut:** If the user explicitly requested a direct answer in Step 2, skip Steps 5 and 7. Steps 0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 still apply (evidence discipline doesn't relax just because output is conversational).

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Report framing default: external / third-party sources

Research articles default to **external framing** — investigating third-party topics, technologies, concepts, public repos, papers, official docs. **Do NOT mix the user's own codebase analysis into the research article unless the user explicitly asks.** Mixing drifts findings from factual synthesis toward opinion-forming applied to the organization, reducing factual fidelity.

• **Default:** external sources (web, open-source repos, papers, official APIs).
• **Exception:** if the user asks "research how our X compares to Y" or "include our codebase," include it — but clearly separate first-party observations from third-party findings in the article so a reader can distinguish externally-verifiable facts from organization-specific takes.

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Persist as you go — the article IS your checkpoint

**PERSIST AS YOU GO — crash-safe checkpoint rule.** The single most expensive failure this procedure produces is completed research lost to a mid-session rate limit or crash — analysis held in context, never written, discarded when the session died. The user paid for work that vanished. The knowledge base is the checkpoint; two rules make every step crash-safe:

• **Ingest each source the moment you fetch it (Step 3), one at a time** — never fetch all sources and ingest them in a trailing batch. An ingested source survives a crash; a fetched-but-unwritten one does not.
• **Create the article skele