> **research** — chapter 10 of 35 in [mattpocock/skills](https://skillsdocs.com/mattpocock/skills).
>
> Book (all chapters, one file): https://skillsdocs.com/mattpocock/skills.md
> Machine manifest: https://skillsdocs.com/mattpocock/skills/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json
> Install the book: `npx skills add mattpocock/skills`
> Upstream: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/engineering/research/SKILL.md @ `main`
> Raw bytes, no header: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattpocock/skills/main/skills/engineering/research/SKILL.md
> Base for relative paths: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattpocock/skills/main/skills/engineering/research/
> Licence: MIT — https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT.html
>
> Bundled files (1), referenced from this skill's directory:
>   - `agents/openai.yaml` — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattpocock/skills/main/skills/engineering/research/agents/openai.yaml
>
> Content © its authors, served unmodified. Takedown: https://github.com/DreambaseAI/skillsdocs/issues/new?labels=takedown&title=Takedown+request

<!-- Verbatim upstream SKILL.md follows, YAML frontmatter included. -->

---
name: research
description: Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or reading legwork delegated to a background agent.
---

Spin up a **background agent** to do the research, so you keep working while it reads.

Its job:

1. Investigate the question against **primary sources** — official docs, source code, specs, first-party APIs — not a secondary write-up of them. Follow every claim back to the source that owns it.
2. Write the findings to a single Markdown file, citing each claim's source.
3. Save it where the repo already keeps such notes; match the existing convention, and if there is none, put it somewhere sensible and say where.