research-wayfinder SKILL.md skillA
research-wayfinder from scdenney/open-science-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add scdenney/open-science-skills/research-wayfinder@git:20261105.dee0bc5Pins git:20261105.dee0bc5 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- scdenney/open-science-skills
- Path
plugin/skills/research-wayfinder/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 6
- Latest version
- git:20261105.dee0bc5, committed Nov 5, 2026
- First version recorded
- Aug 6, 2026
- Size
- 7,285 bytes
- Repository stars
- 69
- License
- a license file GitHub does not identify
Plans a research project as a decision map that persists across sessions, resolving one ticket per session until the design is defensible and pre-registerable. The map lives as Markdown in the repository, literature sweeps run as parallel research tickets, and the resolved map compiles into a pre-analysis plan. Use at project start, when a design has more open decisions than one conversation can hold, or when planning restarts each session. Not for executing analyses or writing the paper.
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 Wayfinder ## Heritage and scope Adapted from Matt Pocock's **wayfinder** (MIT, [mattpocock/skills](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills); see `RECOMMENDED.md` in the library repository). His insight carries over whole: give up on the session as the unit of work. The map lives in the repository, any future session picks it up, and the context window stops being the source of truth. What changes here is the destination and the ticket taxonomy. Wayfinder charts a route to a shippable spec. Research-wayfinder charts a route to a **defensible, pre-registerable research design**, and its decisions are the ones experimental methodology actually forces: estimand before estimator, theory before if-then, power before fielding. Start it early: a vague idea is the input the map is built to resolve. The map ends where `pre-registration-writing` begins — this skill does not run analyses or draft the paper. ## The map `planning/map.md` in the project repo (fits the `research-repo` scaffold; GitHub Issues works when the project is hosted on GitHub, but local markdown is the default and needs nothing). The map is an **index, not a store**: ```markdown # Map — <project name> …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add scdenney/open-science-skills/research-wayfinder@sha256:4e3af00736486850The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261105.dee0bc5, 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.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_dckt5kmhjwka64d4)
3 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 6 versions of this file, between Aug 6, 2026 and Nov 5, 2026, about one every 18 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20261105.dee0bc5 latest | 2026-11-05 | dee0bc5 | 7,285 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20261008.697c89f | 2026-10-08 | 697c89f | 7,316 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260909.08bf795 | 2026-09-09 | 08bf795 | 7,515 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260905.c12f077 | 2026-09-05 | c12f077 | 7,553 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260902.8289c42 | 2026-09-02 | 8289c42 | 7,522 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260806.80b1ab4 | 2026-08-06 | 80b1ab4 | 7,467 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (7285 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
scdenney/open-science-skills · 69 stars · license a license file GitHub does not identify · pushed 2026-11-05 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_dckt5kmhjwka64d4 GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=scdenney/open-science-skills/research-wayfinder GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/4e3af007364868508c125aa91a6e7f98a0e7fcd88cb08bd5702229edfdcc1d52
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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