Research

Use when searching a codebase by behavior, intent, or natural language description rather than exact identifiers. Activates the CocoIndex Code MCP server for semantic code search — finding implementations without knowing exact names, exploring unfamiliar codebases, or locating code by concept.

Process quality methodology for the process-siren agent — use before or during Mermaid conversion when the source process shows ambiguity, missing decisions, undefined actors, vague conditions, or structural weakness. Provides triage sequence, excellence criteria, and an improvement framework drawn from Lean, Six Sigma, BPR, Design Thinking, Systems Thinking, and Theory of Constraints. Activates when source content is poorly structured enough that converting it as-is would encode wrong behavi...

Analysis criteria, transformation patterns, output format, and validation checklist for refactoring Claude Code agent prompt files. Load this skill when preparing to run the subagent-refactorer agent or when reviewing agent prompt files for structural, model optimization, or instruction quality improvements.

Sync a skill's content against the upstream library it covers — check whether the API descriptions, version references, and SOURCE: citations inside SKILL.md and its reference files still reflect what the library actually does today. Use when a library has released updates that may have changed the APIs the skill covers, when a skill references an old library version, when asked to sync, refresh, update, or check a skill against upstream docs, when the skill's content may have drifted from cu...

Use when creating a new Claude Code plugin from scratch — orchestrates prerequisite check, user discussion, parallel research, design with verification, atomic implementation, multi-layer validation, documentation, and final verification. For existing plugin improvement, use /plugin-creator:plugin-lifecycle instead.

Define and develop plugin mission statements — purpose, values, anti-patterns, and trade-offs. Use when creating a new plugin, auditing an existing plugin's alignment, or providing a reference for the alignment check loop to evaluate decisions against. Produces mission.json with [draft] status and writes an interview file for the human to refine it.

Design pattern for converting rule-following, checklist, or rubric skills into a fan-out map-reduce ensemble of parallel rigid sub-agents with corroboration-weighted merge; worker model tier and diversity are knobs matched to inference load and stakes, not fixed values. Apply when creating or refactoring a skill or agent that applies 10+ independent criteria in a single pass. Triggers on: 'review against a checklist', 'fan out', 'map reduce review', 'ensemble', 'split the rules', 'apply rubri...

Use when creating, grooming, planning, or closing a backlog item. Bridges backlog items to SAM planning with issue, project, and milestone tracking against the configured backend. Activates on interactive browsing with no arguments, loading an item by issue reference or title match to run grooming and SAM planning, autonomous unattended runs that substitute evidence-derived decisions for clarifying questions, a quick path for one-file fixes where full grooming is disproportionate, dismissing ...

Synthesis step in the multi-angle technical research pipeline. Receives structured outputs from all four research angles (api-state, ecosystem-research, impact-measurement, codebase-auditor), applies cross-angle signal weighting and conflict resolution, and produces a single synthesized Research section. Invoked by the technical-researcher orchestrator after all angle skills complete. Returns content to the orchestrator — does not write to the backlog.

Quantitative cost measurement for technical research — token injection costs, payload sizes, context window consumption, and file-level counts from actual repo files. Use when a technical-researcher orchestrator needs the cost dimension of adding or changing something: how many tokens will it inject, how big are the artifacts, what is the context window impact? This is NOT blast-radius analysis (which files break) — it covers size, tokens, and performance cost only.

Use when SAM Stage 5 Execution has completed and task results need independent verification against acceptance criteria. Dispatches a separate reviewer agent to fact-check implementation outputs and returns COMPLETE or NEEDS_WORK with specific findings and remediation tasks.

Wrap investigation requests with evidence-chain discipline. Use when the user asks to find out why something happens, look into something, research a root cause, debug an issue, or investigate unexpected behavior. Transforms vague investigation requests into reproducible-proof investigations. Invoke with /dh:find-cause <description of what to investigate>.

Verify claims in backlog items, skill documentation, or plugin content against primary sources. Spawns parallel @dh:fact-checker agents using mcp__Ref, mcp__exa, mcp__context7 as primary tools — training data recall is rejected as evidence. WebFetch/WebSearch are last-resort fallbacks. Produces VERIFIED/REFUTED/INCONCLUSIVE verdicts with citations. Triggers on "fact check", "verify claims", "check against primary sources", or when backlog items are marked UNVERIFIED.

Evaluate and iterate on the SDLC Layer Separation Architecture implementation. Runs validation checks (cross-references, doc completeness, layer metadata, integration points), produces a findings report, and supports iterative fixes. Use when validating first-pass implementation, before claiming layer work is complete, or when improving layer docs/schema.

Research community usage patterns, real-world gotchas, and client compatibility for a specific known library, tool, or protocol feature. Use when a technical-researcher orchestrator needs community-sourced evidence about a named library or feature — bug reports, workarounds, compatibility gaps, and patterns from issue trackers and discussions. Distinct from the broad ecosystem-researcher agent — this skill targets a KNOWN entity and mines what real users have actually experienced, not what ex...

Orchestrate parallel agent dispatch as a manager — not a micromanager. Use when coordinating 2+ independent workers, running SAM task waves, relaying discoveries between worker waves, handling blockers, or synthesizing results. Covers both SAM structured dispatch (the task does the work) and ad-hoc dispatch (reference agent-orchestration for prompt template).

One-line definitions of development-harness (dh) plugin terminology — RT-ICA, ARL, SAM, the S1-S7 pipeline stage names, Impact Radius — each with a pointer to its canonical source file. Use when a dh skill, agent, or workflow step references a term without defining it, before guessing what the term means from its observed outputs, or when asked what a dh concept or acronym stands for.

Fetch and report current API syntax, changelog entries, and breaking changes for a specific library or protocol version. One research angle within a parallel technical-research set — runs independently and returns a structured cited report. Invoke when a specific library name and version are the target.

Dasel v3 selectors for Spring bean factory XML — use when querying any Spring ApplicationContext XML for bean discovery, dependency wiring, JMS destination mapping, property injection extraction, or cross-bean reference tracing. Load this skill before writing dasel selectors against Spring bean XML files (applicationContext.xml, *_beans.xml, spring-*.xml).

Dasel v3 query patterns for InstallAnywhere .iap_xml installer definitions — use when querying action sequences, discovering variables, resolving platform conditions, navigating panels, or comparing installer variants. Files are 2.5+ MB, 65,000+ lines — too large for context reads, requires structural dasel queries.

You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, modifying behavior, or when users request help with ideation, marketing, and strategic planning. Explores user intent, requirements, and design before implementation using research-validated prompt patterns.

Shapes for running many sub-agents at once — fan-out with a barrier, maker/checker, generate-and-filter, tournaments for ranking, hypothesis fan-out for root cause, and loops that stop on a condition with a cap. Use when a phase has several independent targets, when a task is too large or too repetitive for one window, when the same edit applies across many files, when ranking or judging a large set, when several hypotheses compete, or when work must repeat until a signal says stop. Does not ...

Decompose substantive work into phases, dispatch each phase to a sub-agent, and adjudicate what comes back. Use whenever a request asks for implementation, investigation, a fix, a review, or any change to files — including small ones — and whenever you are about to read source or run a diagnostic yourself instead of handing it off. Also use when a report from a sub-agent needs judging, when a phase needs re-dispatching, or when a user names one instance of a pattern. Does not apply when your ...

Use when the user asks what to do next, asks for a plan under uncertainty, challenges stalled or low-trust work, requests multiple possible approaches before action, or needs an evidence-first loop that uses RT-ICA-style prerequisite checks, adversarial review, subagent coordination, real validation, and durable concern tracking.