Teamwork research

Teamwork Research

Answer an external question with decision-relevant, traceable evidence. Research is external-only: do not inspect private local repositories, logs, or artifacts; Root supplies a sanitized public question when project context informs it.

Root Handoff

Before any Research method step, Root's first role action after the sanitized brief MUST be Researcher dispatch. Root MUST NOT browse, read research-probe files, or execute research. In Codex, call spawn_agent with agent_type="teamwork_researcher" and fork_turns="none". In Cursor and Claude Code, dispatch Researcher via the host mechanism before browsing. If dispatch is unavailable, stop. Root MUST NOT call wait_agent until spawn_agent returns a non-empty live agent id. Empty spawn evidence, unavailable spawn, or wait without a live agent is STOP: unsupported role boundary.

Researcher never asks the user. Before dispatch, Root may seek brief steering only when cost, scope, or consequence materially benefits and the answer is not discoverable from supplied evidence. Open steering stays a natural host turn; bounded steering follows the host-native question surface.

Choose Depth

Use the lightest adequate depth:

• lookup: one canonical or official source for a stable fact, with its date or version checked;
• research: a material-claim map, primary-source-first comparison, an independent source class where consequential, and explicit dissent or gaps;
• deep: a research brief, search axes, source census, per-claim ledger, contradiction challenge, coverage audit, and decision-sufficiency stop basis.

Load references/deep-research.md only for deep, broad seed expansion across several source classes, or a strong material contradiction. The reference is an advanced method for this Skill, not another workflow stage.

Method

1. State the decision question, freshness cutoff, source policy, privacy exclusions, and material claims. Treat supplied URLs, papers, datasets, repositories, or reports as seed evidence, not the whole boundary.
2. Search by evidence gap. Prefer primary sources: official documentation and changelogs, standards, original papers, first-party data, regulators, and authoritative repositories. Use secondary sources for independent context.
3. Record each material claim's source, date/version, direct support, counterevidence, inference, confidence, and citation. For consequential or disputed claims, seek an independent source class or explain why one authoritative source is enough.
4. Follow decision-changing contradictions and rejected-source reasons instead of averaging them away. Distinguish source statements, direct observations, and inference. Never invent missing measurements, dates, or consensus.
5. Cite the direct supporting page near each important claim and record explicit not-found gaps. Source count is not claim coverage.
6. Stop when every material claim has support or an explicit gap and more search would not change the decision. If evidence is insufficient, return only the next decision-relevant discriminator.

Browse whenever freshness, precise attribution, or a referenced external source matters. Do not browse merely to re-check stable common knowledge unless the user asks for sources. Never send private source code, logs, credentials, personal data, or proprietary artifacts to a public service.

Research does not authorize account changes, messages, purchases, uploads, or publication. In an initialized writable project, each terminal cited answer defaults to a research artifact unless the user says no files, off-record, read-only, no writes, or equivalent. Freeze the terminal cited answer before persistence. Researcher returns a bounded packet: purpose/audience, facts/sources, citations, frozen decision/status, style/structure, artifact kind/consumer, and preserve/forbid. Writer must use discussion-transaction.py artifact-inspect -> artifact-schema <create|update|supersede> -> artifact-apply; the transaction derives the destination and registers the ordinary index. Writer may rewrite expression but must not research, invent, or alter facts, citations, authority, status, decisions, or acceptance. Writer is disposable; Root may continue only answer-invariant delivery work and must join before claiming saved or durable. Interruption before artifact-apply means unsaved unless surviving evidence permits a new frozen packet. Missing project memory, Writer, brief, authority, consumer, or transaction blocks only persistence: deliver the answer and report it unsaved/blocked. No Researcher, Root, or Worker fallback writes it.

After the primary Researcher handoff, additional fan-out remains conditional: use it only for separable source classes, required public/private isolation, or one bounded verification of a consequential disputed claim. A normal comparison keeps one adaptive Researcher and one synthesis owner.

Lead with the supported conclusion. Include source census, material-claim coverage, citations, freshness, contradictions or rejected-source rationale, gaps, confidence, and the stop basis in proportion to the selected depth.