evidence-first-research v1.0.0A

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/5e2e0e5a65d59181.

---
name: evidence-first-research
description: >-
  Use when a question needs investigating and the answer will be acted on — "research X", "look
  into whether Y", "find out how Z works", "is this worth doing", "compare these options", a
  benchmark someone will quote, or a claim that has to survive being challenged. Produces a dated
  record where every finding carries how it is known — measured, read, inferred, or unverified —
  plus a self-contained HTML view. Not for locating code (that is explore-codebase), tracing one
  symptom (debug-issue), or judging a diff (review-changes); reach for this when the output is a
  set of findings someone else will rely on.
version: 1.0.0
author: ai-badger
license: MIT
platforms: [linux, macos, windows]
scope: default
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [research, evidence, provenance, reporting]
    related_skills: [explore-codebase, debug-issue, owner-gate-review]
---

> **This is the generic copy.** If this project has been scaffolded, prefer the unprefixed
> `evidence-first-research` skill: it is `.ai-badger/skills/evidence-first-research/SKILL.md`, and it has this project's
> extensions and any `project-local.md` merged in. This copy has neither.
>
> The full procedure is in `SKILL.full.md` beside this file, unchanged — read it if the project has no
> `.ai-badger/`, or run `welcome-ai-badger` to scaffold one.