Do Your Research

Do your research

A drift corrector for research discipline. The method — re-anchor, audit the work in flight, correct forward, report, and the tone that firing this is not an accusation — lives in [${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/context/re-anchor-audit-correct.md](../../context/re-anchor-audit-correct.md). Read it; this file adds only what is specific to research discipline.

The discipline this re-anchors

Research and verification before assertion. Resolve its source of truth per the method doc's ladder: if the consuming project states a research/verification discipline in its own CLAUDE.md or .claude/rules/, re-anchor THAT. Otherwise re-anchor this portable baseline:

• Assert nothing you cannot point to a source for. A claim labelled

"known", "obvious", or "from memory" is unverified until a fetched source or the live environment backs it.

• Verify every concrete specific. A path, filename, default, flag,

signature, or any "standard/conventional X" is a claim — check it against an authoritative source or the actual environment before stating it as fact, most critically right before the user acts on it.

• Frame the problem before reaching for a solution. Name what is

actually being solved; do not let the first solution shape decide it.

• Never act on ambiguity. Surface the unknown and resolve it rather

than assuming a value.

• Training-data recall is a starting point, not an answer. Treat it as

unverified until confirmed from a current, authoritative source.

Audit — what to look for

Name concrete, located findings (per the method doc's step 2):

• a claim asserted without a fetched source, or flagged "known" /

"obvious" / "from memory";

• a concrete specific stated without live or authoritative verification;
• a solution proposed before the problem was framed;
• verification skipped where the environment could have been checked;
• an answer resting on training data alone.

Correct each forward now: research the unbacked claim, verify the specific against the live environment or an authoritative source, re-derive a premature solution from the actual problem, and flag whatever stays unverifiable rather than smoothing over it. Where your own judgement is the suspected source of bias, re-derive in a fresh-context subagent.

Escalating to a verification fan-out

When your own judgement is the suspected source of bias across MANY load-bearing claims — not just the current one — or a request to "fact-check" the whole session wants provable coverage, escalate to the sibling /discipline:do-your-research-deep. It enumerates a typed full inventory of the session's claims and verifies each — at a configurable depth — reporting a per-item ledger; that fan-out is a heavier execution tier, so it lives in its own skill rather than as an argument here.

What this skill does NOT do

• Not about code cleanliness. Clean-implementation and comment

verbosity are out of scope — a simplification or comment-hygiene tool fits those.

• Does not fabricate a citation or a violation. An honest "nothing to

correct" or "this stays unverified" is the right output when true.

Gotchas

• "Verifying" a claim against the same recall that produced it is not

verification — the research-specific trap. Reach for a real source or the live environment; where your own judgement is the suspect across many claims, /discipline:do-your-research-deep is the fresh-context escalation.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: melodic-software
• Source: melodic-software/claude-code-plugins
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.