research

SKILL.md

Research

Use this skill to answer a question by delegating the work of finding the answer to a subagent, so that the byproducts of that work — file contents, log noise, dead-end reads — never enter your own context. You get back a distilled answer plus the evidence that supports it, and you stay sharp for the actual task.

Why this matters

Your context window is your most valuable and limited resource. Reading twenty files to discover that three of them mattered permanently pollutes your context with seventeen files of noise, degrading every subsequent decision you make. A subagent absorbs that noise on your behalf and hands you only the signal. Think of it as asking a colleague to dig through the archives and report back, rather than dumping the whole archive on your desk.

When to use it

Reach for research delegation when the cost of producing the answer is far greater than the answer itself. Strong signals:

You'd need to read many files to find the few that are relevant.

You'd need to wade through long test output, CI logs, or stack traces to extract a failure.

You'd need to survey how a pattern, API, or symbol is used across the whole repo.

You'd need to read and summarize a large diff or PR.

The question has several independent sub-parts that could be investigated separately.

Examples — good fits: