Research Skill

Provides research capabilities for technical documentation, library guides, and implementation patterns.

CRITICAL: How to Execute This Skill

When this skill is invoked, you MUST spawn the researcher agent via Task tool.

# MANDATORY: Spawn researcher agent
Task(
  subagent_type: "researcher",
  prompt: "Research <topic>.
    1. Check knowledgebase/CLAUDE.md index first
    2. If exists and not stale, return existing research
    3. If new/stale, use WebSearch/WebFetch to gather info
    4. Create/update file in knowledgebase/{domain}/{slug}.md
    5. Update knowledgebase/CLAUDE.md index
    6. Return summary of findings"
)

DO NOT:

• •Use WebSearch/WebFetch directly yourself
• •Create knowledge base files without spawning researcher agent
• •Skip the index update step

Usage

Direct Invocation

/research <topic> [--task <task-id>] [--refresh]

Examples

# Basic research
/research Claude API structured output patterns

# Research linked to a task
/research Stripe subscription webhooks in NestJS --task task-005

# Force refresh existing research
/research Prisma migration best practices --refresh

Knowledge Base

Research is stored in knowledgebase/ with categories:

Templates

Stub Template

Located at: .claude/skills/research/templates/stub-template.md

Used when linking research to a specific task. Creates a lightweight stub in the task's research/ folder that points to the main knowledge base entry.

Research File Format

All research files use YAML frontmatter for tagging:

---
title: Human-readable title
domain: integration | library | protocol | pattern | troubleshooting
tech: [typescript, nestjs, nextjs, prisma, docker]
area: [auth, billing, ai, websocket]
staleness: 3months | 6months | 1year
created: YYYY-MM-DD
updated: YYYY-MM-DD
sources:
  - https://example.com/docs
---

Staleness Rules

Integration

Used by:

• •Researcher Agent - Primary consumer
• •TL Agent - Requests research before technical design
• •Developer Agents - Requests implementation details
• •Director Agent - Orchestrates research requests

Tools Used

The Researcher Agent uses:

1. •Context7 MCP - For up-to-date library documentation
2. •WebSearch - For tutorials and best practices
3. •WebFetch - For fetching specific documentation pages