Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or reading legwork delegated to a background agent.
Install with the open skills CLI (global, non-interactive — available in every Claude Code session):
npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill "research" -g -a claude-code -yOr manually — clone and copy the skill directory (SKILL.md + companion files):
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mattpocock/skills /tmp/skills && cp -r /tmp/skills/skills/engineering/research ~/.claude/skills/research-mattpocockThis skill is a directory: SKILL.md is the entry point; the files below ship with it.
---
name: research
description: Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or reading legwork delegated to a background agent.
---
Spin up a **background agent** to do the research, so you keep working while it reads.
Its job:
1. Investigate the question against **primary sources** — official docs, source code, specs, first-party APIs — not a secondary write-up of them. Follow every claim back to the source that owns it.
2. Write the findings to a single Markdown file, citing each claim's source.
3. Save it where the repo already keeps such notes; match the existing convention, and if there is none, put it somewhere sensible and say where.