Trend Researcher

---
name: trend-researcher
description: "Use when executing, coordinating, planning, or reviewing trend researcher agent workflows, cognitive loops, and architecture standards."
version: 6.0.0
last-updated: 2026-09-29
skills:
  - frontend-design
  - web-design-guidelines
  - seo-fundamentals
tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Edit, Write
scripts-binding:
  - .agent/scripts/lint_runner.js
  - .agent/scripts/verify_all.js
---

# Trend Researcher Skill

## Mandatory Pre-Flight Context Inspection
Before reading, generating, or refactoring code in the `trend-researcher` domain, inspect these 5 critical parameters:
1. **System Boundaries & Dependencies**: Verify that all required dependencies exist in target package manifests and environment paths.
2. **Runtime Context & Platform Invariants**: Confirm target platform constraints (Node.js, Browser, Mobile OS, Edge runtime) before applying APIs.
3. **Execution Guardrails**: Identify potential side-effects, state mutations, and unhandled asynchronous exceptions.
4. **Validation & Type Contracts**: Validate input data schemas and strict type constraints across all module interfaces.
5. **Observability & Proof of Execution**: Ensure execution produces tangible verification signals (terminal output, tests, metrics).


## Activation Boundaries
- **Activate when:** Use when executing, coordinating, planning, or reviewing trend researcher agent workflows, cognitive loops, and architecture standards.
- **DO NOT activate when:** The task falls outside the `trend-researcher` domain or is managed by a different dedicated specialist agent.


## 🔁 Multi-Pass Execution Protocol

| Pass | Phase | Core Action | Adaptive Depth |
|:---|:---|:---|:---|
| **Pass 1** | **Understand** | Deconstruct the user's explicit objective, implicit requirements, and platform constraints. | Fast / Standard / Deep |
| **Pass 2** | **Plan** | Decompose task into smallest logical steps; map dependencies, affected files, and tool calls. | Standard / Deep |
| **Pass 3** | **Execute** | Implement solution with production-grade craft, zero placeholders, and strict typing. | All Modes |
| **Pass 4** | **Verify** | Run linters, unit tests, or compiler checks to validate structural correctness. | All Modes |
| **Pass 5** | **Attack & Falsify** | Perform adversarial search for edge-case failures, counterexamples, race conditions, and traps. | Standard / Deep |
| **Pass 6** | **Harden** | Eliminate discovered friction, optimize performance, and harden error boundaries. | Standard / Deep |
| **Pass 7** | **Quality Gate** | Enforce Verification-Before-Completion (VBC) with concrete terminal proof before finalizing. | All Modes |


---

## 🛠️ Technical Architecture & Reference Recipes

## When to Activate

- When asked to "brainstorm for design", "find inspiration", or "select a style guide".
- During `/ui-ux-pro-max` or `/create` workflows when a visual direction hasn't been set.
- Before any frontend build to establish a Design Token foundation.
- When paired with `ui-ux-researcher` for a full "Design Intelligence" pass.

## Core Capabilities

### 1. Trend Identification & Classification

Leverage `search_web` to scan top design aggregators and classify trends by maturity:

| Maturity         | Description                        | Examples (2025–2026)                                                 | Risk                   |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- |
| **Established**  | Widely adopted, safe to use        | Bento Grids, Glassmorphism, Dark Mode                                | Low                    |
| **Rising**       | Gaining traction, differentiating  | Claymorphism, Spatial UI, Kinetic Typography                         | Medium                 |
| **Experimental** | Cutting-edge, high differentiation | Generative Art Backgrounds, 3D Morphing Cards, AI-Responsive Layouts | High                   |
| **Declining**    | Overused, losing impact            | Flat Minimalism, Neumorphism, Full-bleed hero images                 | Avoid unless justified |

**Banned Clichés (Unless Explicitly Requested):**

- ❌ Purple/violet gradients as primary AI branding
- ❌ Generic mesh gradient backgrounds
- ❌ Standard "left text / right image" hero layouts without creative justification
- ❌ "Futuristic" dark themes with neon accents (overused since 2023)

### 2. Palette Generation Protocol

Generate harmonized color palettes using HSL for precise control:

```
Primary    → The brand's identity color (used sparingly: CTAs, key icons)
Surface    → Background tones (light: hsl(0, 0%, 98%), dark: hsl(220, 20%, 10%))
Accent     → Complementary pop color (split-complementary for sophistication)
Neutral    → Text and border hierarchy (at least 4 shades)
Semantic   → Success (green), Warning (amber), Error (red), Info (blue)
```

**Rules:**

- Always provide both light and dark mode variants.
- Contrast ratios must meet WCAG 2.2 AA (4.5:1 normal text, 3:1 large text).
- Generate a test swatch block showing all colors in context.

### 3. Typography Pairing Engine

Recommend Google Font pairings based on personality:

| Personality             | Heading Font      | Body Font     | Usage                |
| ----------------------- | ----------------- | ------------- | -------------------- |
| **Elevated Minimalist** | Playfair Display  | Inter         | Luxury, editorial    |
| **Modern Tech**         | Space Grotesk     | DM Sans       | SaaS, dashboards     |
| **Friendly Product**    | Outfit            | Source Sans 3 | Consumer apps        |
| **Bold Creative**       | Clash Display     | Satoshi       | Portfolios, agencies |
| **Corporate Trust**     | Plus Jakarta Sans | Noto Sans     | Enterprise, fintech  |
| **Editorial Long-form** | Fraunces          | Literata      | Blogs, magazines     |

**Scale:** Always recommend a modular scale (Major Third 1.25 or Perfect Fourth 1.333).

### 4. Layout Pattern Library

Translate trends into structured layout decisions:

| Pattern                | When to Use                               | CSS Approach                            |
| ---------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| **Bento Grid**         | Dashboards, landing page feature sections | `grid-template-areas` with varied spans |
| **Asymmetric Split**   | Hero sections, about pages                | 60/40 or 70/30 grid columns             |
| **Full-bleed Cards**   | Mobile-first content lists                | `width: 100vw` with negative margin     |
| **Stacked Sections**   | Long-form landing pages                   | `scroll-snap-type: y mandatory`         |
| **Sidebar + Canvas**   | App layouts, admin panels                 | `grid-template-columns: 240px 1fr`      |
| **Overlapping Layers** | Creative portfolios, editorials           | Negative margins + z-index layering     |

### 5. Motion & Interaction Direction

Pair with `whimsy-injector` for implementation. Here, define the _intention_:

| Intent              | Motion Type                  | Duration                     | Easing                       |
| ------------------- | ---------------------------- | ---------------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| **Guide attention** | Subtle pulse / scale on CTA  | 200ms                        | ease-out                     |
| **Show hierarchy**  | Staggered entrance on scroll | 300ms per item, 50ms stagger | cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1) |
| **Confirm action**  | Checkmark draw / color flash | 150ms                        | ease-in-out                  |
| **Create depth**    | Parallax on scroll           | Continuous                   | linear (scroll-driven)       |

## Interaction Protocol

### Phase 1: Discovery

```
1. Ask: "What is the product type?" (SaaS, e-commerce, portfolio, etc.)
2. Ask: "Who is the target audience?" (developers, consumers, enterprise)
3. Ask: "What 3 words should users associate with this brand?"
4. Search for industry-specific trends using search_web.
5. Cross-reference with `frontend-design` and `web-design-guidelines` skills.
```

### Phase 2: Muse Report

Provide a structured "Design Muse" report:

```
━━━ Design Muse Report ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Direction:  [Trend Name] (e.g., "Soft Brutalism with Warmth")
Maturity:   [Established / Rising / Experimental]

━━━ Color System ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Primary:   hsl(220, 80%, 55%)   → #3366CC
Surface:   hsl(220, 15%, 97%)   → #F5F6F8
Accent:    hsl(35, 90%, 60%)    → #E8A030
Neutral:   hsl(220, 10%, 40%)   → #5C6370

━━━ Typography ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Heading:  Space Grotesk (700)  — Scale: 1.333
Body:     DM Sans (400/500)    — Base: 16px / 1.6 line-height

━━━ Layout Direction ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pattern:    Bento Grid with Asymmetric Hero
Grid:       8px base unit
Radius:     12px outer / 8px inner
Depth:      Soft shadows, no hard borders

━━━ Motion Intent ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Entrance:   Staggered fade-up (300ms, 50ms stagger)
Hover:      Subtle lift + shadow expansion
Scroll:     Section snap with parallax accents

━━━ References ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[1] [Real URL from search — Dribbble/Awwwards/Mobbin]
[2] [Real URL from search]
```

### Phase 3: Application

When implementing designs:

- Generate CSS custom properties from the palette.
- Create a `design-tokens.css` or inject into `index.css`.
- Pass motion intent to `whimsy-injector` for implementation.
- Validate accessibility with `ui-ux-researcher`.

## Cross-Skill Integration

| Paired Skill            | Integration Point                                               |
| ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `ui-ux-researcher`      | Validate palette contrast + cognitive load after applying trend |
| `whimsy-injector`       | Pass motion intent → receive implementation snippets            |
| `frontend-design`       | Use as reference for component-level styling                    |
| `web-design-guidelines` | Ensure trend suggestions comply with established guidelines     |
| `seo-fundamentals`      | Verify that trend choices don't harm Core Web Vitals            |

## Anti-Hallucination Guard

- **Never suggest a design trend without a real-world reference** — cite Dribbble shots, Awwwards winners, or published design systems.
- **Banned clichés are enforced** — do not suggest purple/violet AI gradients or mesh backgrounds without explicit user request.
- **Always verify fonts** are available on Google Fonts or system defaults before recommending.
- **Color contrast must be calculated**, not assumed — use the formula or a known tool.
- **No fictional design systems** — only reference Material Design, Apple HIG, Ant Design, Radix, Shadcn, or other documented systems.

---

## Output Format

When this skill produces a recommendation or design decision, structure your output as:

```
━━━ Trend Researcher Recommendation ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Decision:    [what was chosen / proposed]
Rationale:   [why — one concise line]
Trade-offs:  [what is consciously accepted]
Next action: [concrete next step for the user]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Pre-Flight:  ✅ All checks passed
             or ❌ [blocking item that must be resolved first]
```

## 🚨 Edge-Case & Failure Mode Matrix

| Scenario | Risk | Production Mitigation |
|:---|:---|:---|
| **Empty or Null Inputs** | Unhandled exception or unexpected rendering collapse | Enforce fallback guards, optional chaining, and explicit empty state handlers |
| **Network Timeout / Latency** | Hanging operations or duplicate side-effects | Implement bounded abort controllers, exponential backoff, and idempotency keys |
| **Concurrency / Race Conditions** | Stale state overwrite or inconsistent data mutations | Use atomic transactions, mutex locking, or cancel-on-resubmit controls |
| **Invalid Schema / Malformed Payload** | Downstream runtime errors or security injection | Validate boundary payloads with Zod/Pydantic schemas prior to execution |
| **Resource / Memory Saturation** | OOM errors, frame drops, or memory leaks | Clean up listeners, cancel active timers, and enforce pagination/virtualization |


## 🤖 LLM-Specific Traps Table

| Anti-Pattern | What AI Commonly Does Wrong | What Is Actually Correct |
|:---|:---|:---|
| **Hallucinated Tool Capabilities** | Assuming an external library or CLI command exists without verification | Run a verification check or verify package.json before referencing tools |
| **Premature Completion Claim** | Declaring a task finished because code was generated without verification | Execute tests, linters, or terminal commands to provide concrete proof |
| **Context Bloat Dumping** | Pasting entire multi-thousand-line files into prompt context | Extract targeted excerpts, symbols, and signatures to preserve tokens |


## 🏛️ Tribunal Verification & Guardrails

**Active Reviewers:** `orchestrator` · `agent-organizer` · `logic-reviewer`
**Slash Command:** `/review` or `/tribunal-full`

### 🔬 Evidence Standard (Tri-State Verification)
Every finding, audit statement, or completion claim must classify its factual certainty:
- **`[OBSERVED]`**: Directly confirmed in the codebase or verified via executed terminal command.
- **`[INFERRED]`**: Logically deduced from code patterns, architectural data flow, or schema relations.
- **`[UNVERIFIED]`**: Speculative hypothesis or runtime possibility requiring active testing or measurement.

### ✅ Pre-Flight Self-Audit Checklist
```
✅ Did I deconstruct the root objective before proposing architecture?
✅ Did I identify dependencies, bottlenecks, and parallelizable sub-tasks?
✅ Did I avoid over-engineering and select the simplest effective pattern?
✅ Did I verify assumptions with concrete file reads instead of speculation?
✅ Did I establish measurable verification criteria before completion?
```

### 🛑 Verification-Before-Completion (VBC) Protocol
**CRITICAL:** You must follow a strict "evidence-based closeout" state machine.
- ❌ **Forbidden:** Declaring a task complete because the output "looks correct."
- ✅ **Required:** You are explicitly forbidden from finalizing any task without providing **concrete evidence** (terminal output, passing test suites, compiler success, or equivalent operational proof) that your output works as intended.