ResearchCAUTION

380 Claude Code skills & agent skills & plugins (30+ Agents, 70+ custom commands, 380+ skills, customizable references, scripts)for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and 8 more coding agents — engineering, marketing, product, compliance, C-level advisory, research, business operations, commerc

The instruction file, verbatim from the audited commit — this is the text the model reads, and the surface the audit's instruction layer examines. Quoted here so you can judge it without cloning anything.

---
name: research
description: Default entry point for any research request — a hybrid router that classifies the question deterministically and either delegates to a specialist research skill (pulse for trends/sentiment, grants for NIH funding, litreview for academic literature, syllabus for course reading, patent for prior-art + IP landscape, dossier for entity research, deepread for evidence-first reading of supplied documents) or runs its own plan-decompose-multi-source-search-synthesize-cite fallback workflow when no specialist matches. Always surfaces the routing decision so users can override. Use when the user makes any research request that doesn't obviously match a more-specific specialist skill (e.g., "research [topic]", "look into [topic]", "what do we know about [topic]", "investigate [topic]", "find me information on [topic]", "do some research on [topic]", "I need to understand [topic]"). Output is a markdown briefing (default) or .docx document (on request) with full citations and an audit log.
---

# Research — Hybrid Router + Fallback

**The runtime orchestrator for the research domain.** Architecture C: deterministic classification → specialist delegation OR own plan-decompose-search-synthesize-cite workflow.

## Portability

Requires `WebSearch` + `WebFetch` for the fallback workflow; specialist skills (`pulse`, `grants`, `litreview`, `syllabus`, `patent`, `dossier`, `deepread`) must be present for delegation to work. Node.js with `docx` package required if Q2 = document mode. Works in Claude Code CLI natively. In Claude.ai with web tools + Code Execution, the workflow is supported.

## Distinct From `engineering/autoresearch-agent`

These two skills share the word "research" but serve **completely different use cases**:

- **`research/research/`** (this skill) — research-query router + fallback workflow ("Research X")
- **`engineering/autoresearch-agent/`** — Karpathy's autonomous file-optimization experiment loop ("Make this code faster")

No overlap. They coexist.

## Hybrid Architecture (C)

Every invocation produces one of three outcomes:

1. **Delegation** — Classified as specialist-domain. Routes there. User sees the specialist's output.
2. **Fallback execution** — Classified as general research. Runs own plan → search → synthesize workflow.
3. **Clarification request** — Classification ambiguous OR a single bare-noun signal matched. Asks one forcing question (with a recommended answer) to disambiguate, then routes.

The skill **never silently runs its fallback** when a specialist would have done better. **Routing transparency** is what makes the hybrid architecture trustworthy.

## Specialist Registry

| Specialist | Routing signals | Domain |
|---|---|---|
| `pulse` | reddit / hn / x / buzz / sentiment / trending / "what's people saying" / "pulse on" / "take the pulse" / "current conversation" | Multi-source recency research |
| `grants` | NIH / grant / R01 / K-award / RePORTER / NOSI / "grants for" / FDA / "study section" / "principal investigator" | NIH grant-funding intelligence |
| `litreview` | literature review / PICO / SPIDER / systematic review / "review papers on" / meta-analysis | Academic literature orientation |
| `syllabus` | syllabus / course outline / curriculum / "reading list" / "for my class" / "for my students" | Course supplementary reading |
| `patent` | prior art / FTO / freedom to operate / patent / "patent landscape" / invention / novelty search / "ip landscape" | Patent prior-art + landscape |
| `dossier` | "dossier on" / "due diligence" / "background check" / "prep me for" / "competitor research" / "investor diligence" / "interview prep" / "background on" | Decision-grade entity research |
| `deepread` | "deep read" / "deeply read" / "read this book" / "read this pdf" / "read this document" / "extract the claims" / "knowledge map" / "feynman" | Evidence-first reading of supplied documents |

**Escalation → `deep-research`:** when a wrong answer is expensive (strategy, comparing N options, hypothesis validation, mapping a field) and rigor matters more than speed, escalate to the `deep-research` skill instead of the fast fallback workflow — it runs a triangulated, multi-round, adversarial investigation and persists an auditable, reusable research folder. This router is the fast path; `deep-research` is the heavyweight one.

## Agent Integrity Rules

This skill obeys the research-pack convention:

- **Execution discipline (fallback only)**: Sequential searches. 1 q/sec rate limit. Confirm response received before next call.
- **Source discipline**: Cite only sources returned by this session's tool calls. Training knowledge labeled `[Background — not from search]` and excluded from counts.
- **Three-count tracking (fallback only)**: Queries sent / sources received / sources cited.
- **Retry policy**: On failure → wait 3s → retry once → log. After 3 consecutive failures: stop, alert user.
- **Routing discipline**: Never delegate silently. Always state the decision + accept override.

## Phase 1: Grill-Me Intake (2–4 Questions)

Intake is intentionally minimal — the goal is to route fast, not to interrogate. One question per turn.

### Q1 (always) — Research question

> **What's the research question? State it in 1–2 sentences. Specific is better than broad — "AI for healthcare" gets you a vague survey; "How are health systems integrating LLM-based clinical decision support?" gets you a useful answer.**

**Refuse mush.** If user says "research AI", push back once: "What about AI specifically — adoption, safety, capability, funding, regulation, comparison? Pick an angle."

### Q2 (always) — Output preference

> **What output do you want? Pick one:**
> 1. Quick chat briefing (5-min read, markdown in chat)
> 2. Standalone document (.docx with citations, shareable)

Forcing choice. Document mode triggers deeper search budgets and full audit logs.

### Q3 (asked only when classification returns `ask` or `fallback` with no signals) — Domain dis

CAUTIONgrade B · trust 89/100 Install with care. The audit found things worth knowing before you trust its output.

What the source does

Filesystem

none-observed

Network

none-observed

Shell

none-observed

Dependencies

pinned

Secrets in source

none-found

Findings (5)

.codex/skills/a11y-audit

.codex/skills/ab-test-setup

.codex/skills/ad-creative

.codex/skills/adversarial-reviewer

.codex/skills/aeo

Gates applied: no_behavioural_pass.