research · Skill Details

Mechanism

When It Triggers · How It Works · What It Produces

Breaks down how the skill works and what it produces, so you can quickly judge whether it fits your scenario and value.

Trigger: Invoked when the user wants to research a question without interrupting their current workflow. /ask-matt lists /research as a standalone skill whose output Markdown feeds into the main flow at /grill-with-docs. /wayfinder's research-type tickets also automatically launch background agents to execute /research.
Mechanism: Spawns a background sub-agent to work independently. The agent uses only primary sources — official docs, source code, specs, first-party APIs — tracing each claim back to its origin. Findings are written to a Markdown file in the repo following existing conventions.
Output: A Markdown research document with cited sources, saved to the repo for later use. The main agent continues working concurrently without blocking.

Use Cases

Two Typical Use Cases

Scenario 01

Researching a third-party API's usage

A project needs to integrate the latest Stripe API, but the developer doesn't want to interrupt current coding. Invoking `/research` with "investigate Stripe Checkout Session create method parameters and return types." The background agent works independently, queries Stripe's official docs, and compiles API parameters, types, and usage examples into a Markdown file with source citations. The main agent continues other work in the meantime.

Scenario 02

Gathering coding standards references

A team defining TypeScript coding standards needs to reference the Google TypeScript Style Guide and Microsoft TS Lint rules. The developer invokes `/research` to delegate to a background agent. The background agent reads multiple primary source documents simultaneously, summarizes core rules with each reference citing its origin. The resulting Markdown file serves directly as a standards reference.

Skill Relationships

Which Skills I Use · Which Skills Use Me

Dependency relationships read as "the upper tier points to the lower tier." The current Skill sits in the middle tier — above are Skills that depend on it, below are Skills it depends on.

Tier 1 · These Skills Use Me

Tier 2 · Current Skill

researchWorkflow

Tier 3 · I Use These Skills

No explicit dependency on other Skills

Full Relationship Graph

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Skill File

SKILL.md

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Skill Composition

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▸skills/research/
▸research
- ·SKILL.md
- ▸agents
  - ·openai.yaml

Per the Agent Skills spec, SKILL.md is the only required file. The colored bars classify the rest into the three spec-aligned optional directories (scripts / references / assets) and an 'other' bucket. The full directory tree is below.

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