Research Question Framing

---
name: research-question-framing
description: Convert a broad question into answerable subquestions, evidence requirements, scope limits, source hierarchy, and stop criteria.
---
# Research Question Framing

Use when this procedure is the primary professional method needed for the assignment.

## Procedure
1. Confirm the decision or outcome this work must support, its scope, owner, constraints, and definition of success.
2. Establish the evidence baseline using request context, decision owner, domain, time horizon, geographic scope, and required confidence. Do not fill material gaps with assumptions when they can change the result.
3. Clarify the decision the research supports, separate factual from interpretive claims, identify freshness needs, define exclusions, and plan independent corroboration.
4. Exercise realistic edge, failure, transition, or exception cases that could invalidate the result; record unresolved uncertainty explicitly.
5. Validate the output against the original outcome and any neighboring professional contracts so this skill does not silently absorb another specialist's authority.
6. Record the resulting artifact, measurements, decisions, provenance, and handoff information needed for another owner to reproduce or continue the work.

## Quality gate
The plan makes it clear what evidence would answer, weaken, or leave each subquestion unresolved.