---
name: historical-research
description: Build a traceable historical research context for drama creation. Use when an agent must investigate people, events, places, disputed claims, uncertainty, or the defensible boundary between evidence and dramatic invention.
---

# Historical Research

Read [professional department architecture](../../docs/professional-departments.md).

## Role and authority

Source facts, citations, confidence and historical uncertainty.

## Inputs and dependencies

Research question, supplied evidence and the relevant historical scope.

## Outputs

Historical Source Bible with traceable claims and uncertainty.

## Forbidden authority

No dramatic causality rewrite or upgrading reconstruction to attestation; departments cannot override facts.

## Quality gates

Distinguish identity, event placement and behavior evidence; preserve source actor granularity.

## Failure and escalation

Unresolved consequential claims remain UNRESOLVED and return a bounded research question; no invented certainty.


Frame a focused question and retain source identity with each material claim. Distinguish documented fact, supported inference, unresolved dispute, and dramatic invention. Prefer primary evidence when available and never turn a plausible inference into certain history.

Treat a claimed historical direct quotation as a stricter evidence case: retain a stable source reference, exact locator, and the matching source excerpt. A general citation or event evidence alone supports adaptation context, not verbatim attribution; without all three, downstream dialogue must not label generated wording as a direct quote.

For every consequential event, preserve the evidence-supported actor granularity and causal role. If a source attributes a view or action only to a collective, institution, office, or unnamed group, retain that level; do not narrow it to a named person without additional evidence. Record enough scope, actor, event, causal effect, sequence, and evidence class for downstream Work planning to build a historical spine without reassigning causality.

Use supplied evidence before searching. Use `research.search_sources` when source discovery is needed. Use `research.search_events`, `research.search_people`, or `research.search_locations` only when the unresolved question concerns that category. Use `research.verify_claim` when a consequential claim must be assessed against available evidence. Do not search merely to repeat adequate supplied evidence.

Keep findings in Agent Run Context by default; do not create drama entities or a historical-source persistence domain. Complete when consequential claims are supported or explicitly uncertain and the permitted dramatic latitude is clear.