Agent skill

Research Methodology

by magnus919 in magnus919/agent-skills

Plan, conduct, evaluate, and synthesize rigorous research investigations with credible evidence and a traceable method, including source-to-claim closure for media evidence.

MITAuto-check passedMedia & Creative

Install Research Methodology

skills CLI
$ npx skills add magnus919/agent-skills --skill research-methodology -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install magnus919/agent-skills research-methodology --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/magnus919/agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/research-methodology .claude/skills/research-methodology && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
research-methodology
GitHub stars
115
Token cost
~2.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
1,030 words
Files
15 (incl. references, assets)
Skills in repo
131
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Plan, conduct, evaluate, and synthesize rigorous research investigations with credible evidence and a traceable method, including source-to-claim closure for media evidence.

  • Works in 5 steps: Identify the durable destination. Use… → Extract at the source's natural… → Preserve provenance and relationships.… → …
  • Repeated source extraction and durable note orchestration
  • SKILL.md covers When not to use, The Research Lifecycle, Durable Artifact Gate and Interruption and Timeout…, plus 3 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Research Methodology is an agent skill from magnus919/agent-skills. Plan, conduct, evaluate, and synthesize rigorous research investigations with credible evidence and a traceable method, including source-to-claim closure for media evidence. Do not use this skill for repeated source extraction and durable note orchestration; use research-and-vault for that capture workflow, or ffmpeg for media operations.

Its SKILL.md is about 2.3k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 17 other files, including reference files and assets (for example `README.md`, `assets/media-claim-ledger.md` and `assets/research-brief.md`). Compatibility notes: No runtime dependency. Use appropriate retrieval tools and retain source URLs and access dates in the research log.

It sits in Media & Creative, covering Experimental design and Video production. It works with FFmpeg. The repository describes itself as: Curated collection of AI agent skills for Hermes and other agent frameworks. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Repeated source extraction and durable note orchestration
  • Use research-and-vault for that capture workflow
  • Ffmpeg for media operations

Example prompts

  • “/research-methodology”

Requirements

  • Compatibility (from SKILL.md): No runtime dependency. Use appropriate retrieval tools and retain source URLs and access dates in the research log.

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Identify the durable destination. Use the host's normal long-lived research surface: linked knowledge records, a tracked report package, a…
  2. Extract at the source's natural granularity. Capture every distinct, reusable claim, data point, method, contradiction, and open question…
  3. Preserve provenance and relationships. Each durable artifact must retain its source URL or citation, access date, evidence strength, and…
  4. Separate extraction from synthesis. A brief or report explains the conclusion; it does not replace the underlying evidence records…
  5. Record what was not preserved. If a source was rejected, too weak, inaccessible, redundant, or out of scope, record that decision in the…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 22b4723. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

  • Compatibility

    No runtime dependency. Use appropriate retrieval tools and retain source URLs and access dates in the research log.

    From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Research Methodology loads about 2.3k tokens when it runs, and up to ~13k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 91 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,030 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~91
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~2.3k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~13k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from magnus919/agent-skills at commit 22b4723, republished under its MIT licence (© magnus919). 1,030 words, ~2,256 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/research-methodology/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 14 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
research-methodology
description
Plan, conduct, evaluate, and synthesize rigorous research investigations with credible evidence and a traceable method, including source-to-claim closure for media evidence. Do not use this skill for repeated source extraction and durable note orchestration; use `research-and-vault` for that capture workflow, or `ffmpeg` for media operations.
compatibility
No runtime dependency. Use appropriate retrieval tools and retain source URLs and access dates in the research log.
license
MIT
metadata.source_repo
https://github.com/magnus919/hermes-profiles
metadata.source_commit
867a555

Research Methodology

Professional research process for a subagent. Three tracks based on the type of research:

  • Journalistic — investigative pieces, primary source research, source-heavy narrative work
  • Industry analysis — market research and strategy, signal detection
  • Academic/Comprehensive — deep systematic research when depth matters most

All three share the same lifecycle (Scope → Gather → Evaluate → Analyze → Synthesize → Report) but differ in evidence standards, speed, and output format.

Media evidence is a technical-verification extension, not a fourth operational track. This skill owns research scope, source evaluation, claim closure, sampling-completeness audits, exclusions, and durable preservation. The ffmpeg skill owns FFmpeg commands, media probes, extraction, editing, rendering, and target verification; human or capable reviewers own semantic/editorial observations and approval. Load references/media-evidence-routing.md whenever a research conclusion depends on media tooling, sampled frames/audio/transcripts, or editorial judgment.

When not to use

Do not load this skill for:

  • A single factual lookup or a quick answer — respond directly; a full research lifecycle adds cost without adding credibility.
  • Direct implementation work that needs no investigation — build and verify the change instead (backend-engineering, frontend-engineering).
  • Operating a specific retrieval or capture tool — load that tool's skill for runbook-level configuration and diagnostics.
  • Raw capture of web content without evaluation or synthesis — the capture tool's own skill covers fetching; this skill starts where source evaluation begins.
  • Structuring already-gathered findings into durable summaries, analysis files, and evidence dossiers — use artifact-pyramids for the output architecture.
  • Persisting captured sources into durable notes across a repeated research-to-note sequence — use research-and-vault.

The Research Lifecycle

SCOPE → GATHER → EVALUATE → ANALYZE → SYNTHESIZE → REPORT

Durable Artifact Gate

Research is not complete when an agent has produced a plausible answer. It is complete when the reusable evidence and reasoning have been preserved in the durable format that is natural to the host system and its users.

Before reporting, make the preservation decision explicit:

  1. Identify the durable destination. Use the host's normal long-lived research surface: linked knowledge records, a tracked report package, a research database, a project document, or another user-visible artifact. Do not leave the only useful output in chat, a transient workspace, or an untracked scratch file.
  2. Extract at the source's natural granularity. Capture every distinct, reusable claim, data point, method, contradiction, and open question that materially changes future reasoning. Do not use a fixed atom, finding, or note count as a stopping rule. Continue until each retained source is accounted for in the extraction log.
  3. Preserve provenance and relationships. Each durable artifact must retain its source URL or citation, access date, evidence strength, and links to the question, related artifacts, and any synthesis that depends on it.
  4. Separate extraction from synthesis. A brief or report explains the conclusion; it does not replace the underlying evidence records. Preserve source-level records and reusable claims before compacting them into a synthesis.
  5. Record what was not preserved. If a source was rejected, too weak, inaccessible, redundant, or out of scope, record that decision in the research log. A future researcher must be able to distinguish an intentional exclusion from an overlooked source.

The right artifact shape depends on the environment. Do not assume a particular database, note-taking application, or orchestration system. The invariant is durable, navigable, evidence-linked research that a later user or agent can discover and build on.

Show full SKILL.md (501 more words)Show less

Interruption and Timeout Recovery

A research worker timeout is an interruption, not a research result. Never close the investigation, summarize it as complete, or infer that no useful work exists because a delegated worker exceeded its execution cap. Long research jobs commonly encounter slow extraction, rate limits, or one unresponsive source after producing valuable partial work. Plan long research as bounded, resumable subtasks: use task-appropriate execution windows, write incremental checkpoints, and resume from the latest verified checkpoint instead of imposing arbitrary short caps or assuming an unbounded window is available.

When a worker times out:

  1. Read the complete delegation transcript and inspect the workspace or scratch directory before deciding what was lost.
  2. Recover and verify every partial artifact, source log, and extracted claim already written.
  3. Resume from the last durable checkpoint rather than restarting broad discovery.
  4. Narrow or replace the slow operation, especially large PDF extraction or repeated rate-limited search, and write each subsequent stage incrementally.
  5. If the worker cannot be resumed safely, continue the missing research directly or split it into smaller bounded tasks. A timeout changes the execution path, not the acceptance criteria.
  6. Do not report completion until the research question is covered, retained sources and claims are represented in the durable evidence artifacts, and unresolved gaps are explicit.

The acceptance gate is evidence completeness and artifact verification, not elapsed time, worker status, or the existence of a plausible partial summary.

Reference Files

Tracks
TrackReferenceWhen to load
Journalisticreferences/journalistic-research.mdYou're researching an investigative piece — primary sources, interviews, documents, series management, pre-publication verification
Industry analysisreferences/industry-analysis.mdYou're researching an industry analysis piece — signal detection, corporate evidence, competitive intelligence, case study standards
Academic / Comprehensivereferences/research-lifecycle.mdYou're doing deep systematic research — question scoping, search strategy, inclusion/exclusion criteria
Shared Methodology
ReferenceWhen to load
references/source-evaluation.mdYou need to judge whether a source is credible — CRAAP test, triangulation, reliability tiers
references/structured-analytic-techniques.mdYou need to evaluate competing explanations — ACH, driving forces, pre-mortem, indicators
references/synthesis-patterns.mdYou need to combine findings from multiple sources into synthesized conclusions
references/technical-verification.mdYou need to test a technical claim by reproducing it — benchmarks, API behavior, configuration
references/media-evidence-routing.mdMedia research needs an explicit research/FFmpeg/reviewer boundary, sampling audit, or source-to-claim closure
Assets
AssetWhat it produces
assets/research-brief.mdStructured brief with findings, confidence assessment, evidence table, open questions
assets/research-log.mdTraceable record of searches, sources, and decisions
assets/media-claim-ledger.mdMedia brief boundary, claim-to-source/experiment closure, sampling audit, and exclusion log

Use both assets for every substantial investigation. Before closing the work, complete their durable-artifact sections and verify that retained sources and extracted claims are represented in the destination system.

Pre-Publication Gateway

For any piece that makes factual claims, load the relevant track's verification protocol before reporting back:

  • Journalistic: 7-step pre-publication protocol from references/journalistic-research.md
  • Industry: 7-step research protocol from references/industry-analysis.md
  • Technical: 5-step reproduction protocol from references/technical-verification.md

Portability

This skill is intentionally host-neutral. Use your agent's normal mechanisms to load the references, templates, and scripts listed here. Do not assume a particular profile system, task orchestrator, memory service, or response-handoff format.

© magnus919, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 14 other files (references, assets) in research-methodology of magnus919/agent-skills.

  • SKILL.md
  • README.md
  • assets/media-claim-ledger.md
  • assets/research-brief.md
  • assets/research-log.md
  • evals/evals.json
  • references/industry-analysis.md
  • references/journalistic-research.md
  • references/media-evidence-routing.md
  • references/research-lifecycle.md
  • references/source-evaluation.md
  • references/source-index.md
  • references/structured-analytic-techniques.md
  • references/synthesis-patterns.md
  • references/technical-verification.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 22b4723

Compare with similar skills

Research Methodology next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Research Methodology compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Research Methodology this skillmagnus919/agent-skills115—~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
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HyperFrames Video Entry Pointheygen-com/hyperframes60k3 repos~5.2kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Video Shotseternityspring/reelbench-skills8781 repos~1.8kAutomated safety check: NotesApache-2.0
Mobile Demo Film Editorsuperset-sh/superset15k—~1.8kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
Video Editcalesthio/OpenMontage66k—~855Automated safety check: NotesAGPL-3.0

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Works with

Questions about Research Methodology

What does Research Methodology do?

Plan, conduct, evaluate, and synthesize rigorous research investigations with credible evidence and a traceable method, including source-to-claim closure for media evidence. Research Methodology is an agent skill from magnus919/agent-skills. Plan, conduct, evaluate, and synthesize rigorous research investigations with credible evidence and a traceable method, including source-to-claim closure for media evidence.

When should I use Research Methodology?

Research Methodology fits situations like: repeated source extraction and durable note orchestration; use research-and-vault for that capture workflow; ffmpeg for media operations.

How do I install Research Methodology in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add magnus919/agent-skills --skill research-methodology -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (research-methodology in magnus919/agent-skills) into .claude/skills/research-methodology in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Research Methodology in Codex?

Run `npx skills add magnus919/agent-skills --skill research-methodology -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (research-methodology in magnus919/agent-skills) into .agents/skills/research-methodology in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Research Methodology in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add magnus919/agent-skills --skill research-methodology -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/research-methodology, .gemini/skills/research-methodology, .github/skills/research-methodology and .opencode/skills/research-methodology in your project.

What does Research Methodology need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Research Methodology is instructions for the agent only. Compatibility (from SKILL.md): No runtime dependency. Use appropriate retrieval tools and retain source URLs and access dates in the research log..

Does Research Methodology access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Research Methodology safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Research Methodology use?

Research Methodology is published under the MIT licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Research Methodology use?

About 2.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 9k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 10k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Research Methodology?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Research Methodology: Video Understand (calesthio/OpenMontage, 66k stars), HyperFrames Video Entry Point (heygen-com/hyperframes, 60k stars), Video Shots (eternityspring/reelbench-skills, 878 stars) and Mobile Demo Film Editor (superset-sh/superset, 15k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Research Methodology?

magnus919 (a GitHub user) maintains it in magnus919/agent-skills, which has 115 GitHub stars. The repository holds 131 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 10, 2026.

Source: magnus919/agent-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.