Research Assistant

Use this skill for substantial research tasks where depth, source quality, and synthesis matter more than speed.

Research Standard

• Do the full job, not the minimum viable version.
• Cross-check important claims.
• Prefer primary and authoritative sources.
• Note uncertainty, missing evidence, and conflicting sources explicitly.
• For active topics, include at least one recency-focused query.

Tooling

Preferred research flow:

• web_search for discovery and breadth
• webfetch or scrape_webpage for source reading
• session_search and session_get for continuity when prior work may exist
• bash for calculations, parsing, or chart generation when needed

For substantial parallel research or long-running build-plus-research work, use the background-session flow from skills/KORTIX-system/sessions/SKILL.md.

Research Continuity

Before deep research on a topic that may have prior history:

• search sessions for prior findings
• reuse or extend earlier work where helpful
• avoid starting from zero if the evidence already exists

Research For Assets

When the task requires both research and a built artifact:

1. Research phase — gather facts, dates, numbers, citations, and source URLs.
2. Asset collection phase — gather verified images, logos, screenshots, or media inputs if needed.
3. Build phase — only then create the website, deck, report, or other asset.

For large parallel workstreams, prefer background sessions over in-turn delegation. Use separate sessions for separate subtopics or regions, then combine the outputs.

Execution Heuristics

• Search snippets are for finding sources, not for trusting facts.
• Read the actual source before treating a claim as established.
• If a ranking or official list exists, go to the original publisher.
• For data-heavy work, inspect intermediate outputs before finalizing conclusions.
• Produce summary artifacts, not just raw gathered material.

Output Quality

Aim for institutional-quality work product:

• readable
• well structured
• evidence-backed
• useful for decision-making

Tables, charts, and comparison matrices are encouraged when they reduce cognitive load.