research – Data & Science skill for AI agents

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 disambiguation

> Quick clarification — pick the closest match *(recommended: {N} — your question matched a {specialist} signal)*:

> 1. Academic literature (papers, peer-reviewed)

> 2. Industry / trends (what's the buzz, news, sentiment)

> 3. Specific entity (a company, person, organization)

> 4. Technology / patents (prior art, IP landscape)

> 5. Grant funding (NIH, foundations)

> 6. Course material (syllabus or curriculum)

> 7. None of the above — run general research

When the classifier returned ask (single bare-noun signal), pre-mark the recommended option. Skip if classification produced a silent route (≥2 signals OR one strong multi-word phrase).

Q4 (asked only if Q3 was needed AND user picked "none of the above") — General-research scope

> For general research, what's your time horizon — quick scan (5 searches) or thorough (15 searches)?

Skip if a specialist took over.

Stop condition: After Q4 (or earlier if dependency skips applied), commit and start Phase 2. Most invocations exit intake after Q1 + Q2.

Phase 2: Deterministic Classification

This is deterministic, not LLM-reasoned — for speed, debuggability, and consistency.

SIGNALS = {
  pulse:    ["reddit", "hn", "hacker news", "x.com", "twitter", "buzz",
             "sentiment", "trending", "what are people saying",
             "what's happening", "the conversation around",
             "pulse on", "take the pulse", "current conversation"],
  grants:   ["nih", "grant", "grants for", "r01", "r21", "k-award", "reporter",
             "nosi", "funding", "fda", "study section", "principal investigator"],
  litreview:["literature review", "lit review", "litreview", "pico", "spider",
             "systematic review", "review papers on", "research papers on",
             "papers about", "meta-analysis"],
  syllabus: ["syllabus", "course outline", "curriculum", "reading list",
             "for my class", "for my students", "course material"],
  patent:   ["prior art", "fto", "freedom to operate", "patent",
             "patent landscape", "invention", "novelty search",
             "patent search", "ip landscape"],
  dossier:  ["dossier on", "due diligence", "background check",
             "prep me for", "competitor research", "investor diligence",
             "interview prep", "research my competitor", "background on"],
  deepread: ["deep read", "deeply read", "read this book", "read this pdf",
             "read this document", "extract the claims", "extract claims from",
             "knowledge map", "feynman", "argument map"]
}

# Signals are case-insensitive literal phrases (multi-word substring match).
# Bracketed placeholders (e.g., "research [company]") are intentionally NOT
# signals — they over-trigger on generic "research X" queries that should
# fall back to general research, not auto-route to dossier.
# STRONG signal = multi-word phrase (contains a space): pairs verb with noun
# ("dossier on", "prior art") and routes reliably.
# BARE-NOUN signal = single word ("funding", "fda", "patent", "grant"):
# too weak to silent-route on alone — it must trigger Q3 with a
# recommended answer instead.

For each specialist S:
  score[S] = count of SIGNALS[S] phrases matched in question (case-insensitive substring)

if max(score) >= 2:
  route_to = argmax(score)                  # high confidence — silent route
elif max(score) == 1 and only one specialist has score 1:
  if the matched phrase is multi-word (contains a space):
    route_to = that specialist              # strong phrase — silent route
  else:
    route_to = "ask"                        # bare noun — ask Q3, recommend that specialist
else:
  route_to = "fallback"                     # ambiguous or no match — ask Q3 / run fallback

Implementation: scripts/classifier.py --question "..." returns the routing decision + matched signals + per-specialist scores + (for ask) the recommended specialist. Use it; don't re-implement. The SIGNALS map and rules above are kept phrase-for-phrase

… (full content is in the download package)