/deep-research-team

name: deep-research-team
description: >
  This skill should be used when the user asks for "deep research", "research team",
  "comprehensive analysis", "research report", "investigate thoroughly", "compare X vs Y in
  depth", or needs synthesis across multiple sources with verification. It spawns a coordinated
  team of researcher agents across multiple rounds, with the lead triaging findings and creating
  targeted follow-up tasks. Scales from Focused (2 researchers, 1-2 rounds) to Comprehensive (4
  researchers, 3-4 rounds with cross-verification). Do NOT use for simple lookups, debugging, or
  questions answerable with 1-2 searches.

Deep Research Team (Lead Orchestrator)

Conduct thorough, iterative research by coordinating a persistent team of researcher agents across multiple rounds. This architecture enables mid-investigation steering, targeted follow-up based on emerging findings, and cross-agent verification.

Architecture Overview

Round 1: Investigation      Round 2: Follow-up          Synthesis

┌──────────┐                  ┌──────────┐                  ┌────────┐
│Researcher│  sends findings  │Researcher│  sends findings  │        │
│    A     ├─────────┬───────>│    A     ├─────────┬───────>│        │
└──────────┘         │        └──────────┘         │        │        │
                     │                             │        │        │
                     v          dispatches         v        │        │
┌──────────┐    ┌────────┐    ┌──────────┐    ┌────────┐    │  Lead  │
│Researcher├───>│  Lead  │───>│Researcher├───>│  Lead  │───>│  synth │
│    B     │    │triages │    │    B     │    │triages │    │  esizes│
└──────────┘    └────────┘    └──────────┘    └────────┘    │        │
                     ^                             ^        │        │
┌──────────┐         │        ┌──────────┐         │        │        │
│Researcher├─────────┴───────>│Researcher├─────────┴───────>│        │
│    C     │  sends findings  │    C     │  sends findings  │        │
└──────────┘                  └──────────┘                  └────────┘

**Key principles:**

1. **No peer-to-peer researcher communication.** All coordination goes through the lead. This preserves the independence that accounts for 87% of multi-agent gains (Choi et al.) and avoids sycophancy failures (Wynn et al.). Researchers never see each other's findings.

2. **Multi-round iteration.** The lead triages Round 1 findings and creates targeted Round 2 tasks for gaps, conflicts, and promising leads.

3. **Cross-agent verification (Comprehensive scope).** The lead asks Researcher A to verify Researcher B's high-impact single-source claim. The verifier only sees the claim and its source, not the original researcher's full analysis.

4. **Dynamic task evolution.** The shared task list starts with pre-planned angles but grows organically as follow-up tasks emerge from findings. The lead dispatches follow-up tasks directly to specific researchers via SendMessage.

When to Use

**Use this skill for:**

• Complex questions that benefit from multiple research angles
• Topics where initial findings will reveal what to investigate next
• Research requiring cross-verification of contested claims
• Any question needing synthesis across 5+ sources

**Do NOT use for:**

• Simple factual lookups (use regular web search)
• Questions answerable with 1-2 searches
• Debugging or code questions

Effort Calibration

| Scope | Researchers | Rounds | Verification | Model | | ----------------- | ----------- | ------ | ------------ | ------ | | **Focused** | 2 | 1-2 | None | sonnet | | **Broad** | 3 | 2-3 | None | sonnet | | **Comprehensive** | 4 | 3-4 | Cross-agent | opus |

Round counts are heuristics, not targets. Stop early when you hit citation convergence -- additional rounds that don't surface new substantive findings waste tokens and context. A Broad run that converges in 2 rounds is a success, not a shortcut. After each round's triage, ask: "Would another round change the report's conclusions?" If not, proceed to synthesis.

Default scope is determined by question type (see `references/question-types.md`). Present the recommended scope to the user and allow override.

**Model selection:**

• **Lead**: inherits user's session model (no override)
• **Researchers**: `sonnet` for Focused/Broad, `opus` for Comprehensive

(Sonnet validated as viable override for Comprehensive when cost matters)

Output Directory

Research artifacts persist to disk for resumability and backup.

**Directory resolution** -- run this command FIRST, before creating anything. The output is your `{output_dir}`. Only the fallback branch creates a directory; the others reuse what exists.

if [ -d "$(pwd)/deep-research" ]; then
  echo "$(pwd)/deep-research"
elif [ -n "$CLAUDE_DEEP_RESEARCH_DIR" ]; then
  eval echo "$CLAUDE_DEEP_RESEARCH_DIR"
else
  mkdir -p "$(pwd)/deep-research"
  echo "$(pwd)/deep-research"
fi

After resolving `{output_dir}`, create only the topic subdirectory in Phase 3.

Each session creates a subdirectory: `{output_dir}/{topic-slug}/`

**Contents:**

• `state.md` -- triage checkpoint, cross-references, follow-up plan (written in Phase 4)
• `researcher-{letter}-findings.md` -- backup of each researcher's findings
• `report.md` -- final synthesized report (written in Phase 6)

Calibrated Confidence Language

Use Kent-style verbal probability expressions in all confidence assessments:

| Term | Range | Use When | | -------------- | ------ | ----------------------------------------- | | Almost certain | 93-99% | Multiple high-quality sources, no dissent | | Highly likely | 80-92% | Strong evidence, minor caveats | | Likely | 63-79% | Good evidence, some gaps | | Roughly even | 40-62% | Conflicting evidence, gen