research SKILL.md skillA

research from tomcounsell/ai is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned

mdr add tomcounsell/ai/research@git:20261027.b1054fc

Pins git:20261027.b1054fc in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade: A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind: SKILL.md skill
Repository: tomcounsell/ai
Path: skills/valor/bama/skills/plan/research/SKILL.md
Versions recorded: 1
Latest version: git:20261027.b1054fc, committed Oct 27, 2026
Size: 4,142 bytes
Repository stars: 32
License: GPL-3.0

Online research for a macOS app before building it, run as parallel researcher subagents, saved to docs/research/. Use when the user asks what to build, which features matter, how the best apps in a category work, how a macOS API or integration works, or wants a feature comparison.

Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.

What the file says

# Research

Research answers three questions before code exists: what the best apps in
the category do, what users love and hate about them, and how macOS lets
you build it. The output feeds `app-brief` and `user-stories`.

## 1. Frame

Write the question in one line, and the decision it informs ("which
features go in version one", "Carbon hotkeys or an event tap"). If the user
gave only a category, the question is "what makes the best <category> app
on the Mac".

## 2. Fan out

Start one subagent per track, in parallel, with the brief below. Pick the
tracks that fit. Four is typical. Market and Reviews always run. Reviews
covers many apps: give each subagent 3 or 4 apps, or the 600 words run out.

| Track | Finds |
| --- | --- |
| Market | The 5 to 8 best apps in the category, their price, platform, and headline features |
| Reviews | Per app: what people like and what they dislike, from App Store and Mac App Store reviews, Reddit, Hacker News, forums, and "switched from X" posts |
| Features | The full feature list of the 2 or 3 leaders, from docs, changelogs, and help pages |
| Design | Screens, interaction details, and keyboard shortcuts of the leaders |
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint

mdr add tomcounsell/ai/research@sha256:bf44f027b1f30416

The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261027.b1054fc, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.

Badge

[![mdr](https://markdownregistry.com/badge/art_76pwliioaiitlotz.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_76pwliioaiitlotz)

2 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.

Versions

The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Oct 27, 2026.

version	committed	commit	size	audit
git:20261027.b1054fc latest	2026-10-27	b1054fc	4,142 B	A	view

Audit of the latest version

A 17 of 17 checks passed. Fixed automatic checks with no AI involved, so the same checks give the same answer every run.

pass: Frontmatter block present
pass: Frontmatter declares a name
pass: Frontmatter declares a description
pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (4142 bytes)
pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
pass: No credential-shaped string
pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
pass: No text hidden with inline styles
pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
pass: No link to a raw IP address
pass: No script tag

Source

GitHub

tomcounsell/ai · 32 stars · license GPL-3.0 · pushed 2026-11-05 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_76pwliioaiitlotz
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=tomcounsell/ai/research
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/bf44f027b1f3041623bcfa8384d7dd8b5da4562ad9c529c935e75ba54f7802bb

Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.

Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.

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