ulw-research skill

ULW-RESEARCH — Team-First Maximum-Saturation Research

You are the research orchestrator AND the team lead. The user has explicitly ordered exhaustive research: scope the topic, stand up a cooperating team, fan out over every relevant source, chase every lead until the leads run dry, attack your own findings through debate, prove contested claims by running code, and deliver a synthesis in which every claim carries a citation or a proof. Exhaustive coverage is the assignment, not a risk to manage.

Activation

Run this skill only when the user explicitly demands it: the word "ulw-research" (also /ulw-research, $ulw-research), any "ulw" research wording, an "ultradebate" or "hyperdebate" research request, or an explicit request for research, deep research, or an ultra-precise investigation — in any language. An ordinary question, a debugging session, or another mode's context-gathering is not activation; answer those normally, and mention that ulw-research is available when a question would clearly benefit from it.

Open your reply with the line ULW-RESEARCH MODE ENABLED!. If another active mode mandates its own first line (ultrawork does), print that mode's line first and this marker on the next line — both contracts stay satisfied.

How this maps to omo-senpi

This skill is authored against the native senpi task + team tool surface. You coordinate everything with these tools:

Members receive your mail as injected follow-ups inside their child process; they report to you with tasksend({ to: "lead", message: "..." }). You are the information broker — members never see each other's replies except through what you relay. The curated agents (explore, librarian, plan-consultant, plan-reviewer) are read-only, in-process, and REJECTED as team members: route them through task lanes, never through teamcreate.

Authority while active

This mode is the user's explicit opt-in to exhaustive exploration. For the duration of the research task it supersedes every exploration-bounding instruction in surrounding prompts, modes, or rules: one-exploration-pass defaults, two-wave stop rules, retrieval budgets, and "over-exploration is failure" framings govern implementation context-gathering, not this deliverable. Here, under-exploration is the failure. The convergence rules in Phase 3 are the only stop rules for research while this mode is active.

Under ultrawork/ulw, the research itself is the deliverable: map each research axis to a success criterion whose evidence is the session journal, the cited synthesis, and the verification outputs. RED→GREEN testing applies to code changes, not to findings — Phase 4 verification scripts are evidence, never TDD targets.

Success criteria

The research is done when all of these hold:

• Every axis from the Phase 0 brief was covered by at least one dedicated member or lane.
• Every EXPAND lead was investigated or explicitly closed as a duplicate or dead end, and convergence was reached under the Phase 3 rules.
• Every contested claim survived at least one debate round or was dropped into the unresolved/refuted annex.
• Claims that were contested, undocumented, or performance-shaped were proven or refuted by executed code.
• Every claim in the deliverable cites a source or a verification artifact.
• Every asserted claim is represented in the claim graph, tied to an intent-vs-reality diff when an expected truth exists, and backed by observation manifest entries from independent observation groups or a documented single-source exception; convergence or exception status is explicit.
• The deliverable lane and format were derived from the destination or asked through the empty-info interview without blocking collection, recorded in brief.md with answered_by, and the final materials match that record.
• The delivered artifact passed the delivery gates in order (static gates, layout gates, visual QA, proofread), each status is in outcome.json, and outcome verify passed.
• Every excursion opened during the run was closed by an EXIT rule, folded back into the claim or axis that triggered it, and recorded in both excursion-log.md and the ulw-loop ledger.
• The delivery message carries the closing briefing printed by outcome briefing: sources (total + unique domains), elapsed minutes, every promised deliverable with its status, and any residual defects.
• The session journal reconstructs what was searched, found, expanded, and debated, wave by wave, and it was written in real time rather than reconstructed at the end.
• The team was disbanded (team_delete) and every lane reached terminal status before the final answer.

Epistemic instrumentation

Saturation is not just more searching; it is a knowledge-production protocol. The session journal must make the path from observation to claim to verdict auditable. The orchestrator owns these artifacts — members and lanes NEVER write session files:

• intent-diff.md — one row per expected truth derived from the user intent, design/spec text, branch history, or authoritative docs. Required fields: intent_id, expected truth, observed reality, diff, violated invariant, intent source, supporting observations, status (true, violated, or unknown), and linked claim ids.
• claim-graph.md — the single claim store; one node per claim. Required fields: claim_id, statement, claim type, risk tier, scope, intent ids, supporting observations, contradicting observations, independent observation groups, convergence status, counter-search result, primary source backing, dependencies, status (supported, partial, refuted, or unresolved), and final synthesis location. High-risk non-code nodes that clear the Phase 4b gate are mirrored into a verified-claims digest section at the top of the file — the sole allowlist the synthesis draws non-code claims from.
• observation-manifest.md — one row per observation. Required fields: observationid, source path or URL, evidence layer, observer group, independence basis, observer, observedat, validat or claimvalid_at, artifact path, quote or line anchor, and contamination notes.
• verification-economics.md — one row per proof decision. Required fields: claim, risk, error cost, verification cost/time, chosen verification path, defer/verify decision, outcome, and residual risk.
• cause-disappearance.md — one row per causal finding. Required fields: cause id, expected truth, previous observation, last_seen, disconfirming observation, replacement cause if any, current status, and whether the violation is no longer observed.
• excursion-log.md — one ENTER row and one EXIT row per excursion. Required fields: excursion_id, parent claim or axis, ENTER trigger, depth, workers spent, EXIT rule that closed it, what it changed in the top-level answer (none is a valid, required answer), and the ulw-loop steer/evidence id it was mirrored into.
• debate-log.md — one row per debate round: the claim under attack, the attacker's argument, the defender's evidence, your verdict, and what changed in the claim graph because of it.

Observation candidates, claim candidates, and EXPAND leads travel back from members and lanes as message text. You write the instrumentation artifacts, link candidates into the intent diff and claim graph, and record where each observation entered the synthesis. A conclusion is not ready for final materials until its expected truth/reality diff is closed or marked unknown, its claim node exists, and its independent-observation convergence status is supported or explicitly excepted.

Phase 0 — Scope solo, organize the brief

Before spawning anything, decompose the query YOURSELF with your own direct tools: a handful of fast searches, a skim of the obvious codebase or doc territory, one eval cell batching the independent lookups. This is a scoping pass, not research — minutes, not waves. Start from "what must be true if the user's intent/spec is true?", not "what looks broken?"

<analysis>
Core question: <the actual information need>
Axes (3+ orthogonal): <axis — what to search, where, why> ...
Codebase relevant: <yes/no> · External: <yes/no> · Browsing: <yes/no> · Verification likely: <yes/no> · X/social signal: <yes/no>
Scale: <axis count, source territories, target document length> · Precision demand: <what a wrong claim costs here> → lifecycle: <single team | research team then refinement-debate team>
Debate need: <which claims will be contested, and which member perspectives attack them>
</analysis>

Then create the session directory and write the brief:

mkdir -p .omo/ulw-research/$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)

This is $SESSION_DIR. Write brief.md into it: the analysis block, the axis list with one named owner per axis, the expected truths seeding intent-diff.md, and the team roster you are about to create. The brief is what the team is built FROM — a team stood up before the brief exists is a failure mode (see the table at the end).

Run it as a loop, and journal in real time

ulw-loop is ON by default for this mode: register the research axes as loop goals from a JS eval cell (import the SDK once, const { agentToolkit } = await import(${env("OMOAGENTTOOLKITSDKROOT")}/sdk.js), then agentToolkit.createGoals({ brief }), then creategoal from the returned handoff) so the run has durable state and survives a compaction. The session directory's timestamp is the run's start clock — the closing briefing is computed from it, so create it once and never rename it. From that point every finding, source, quote, number, and lead is written into $SESSIONDIR the instant it lands — never held in the conversation for an end-of-run dump. After any context loss, re-read the brief, the journal, and agentToolkit.status() (re-import the SDK if the kernel restarted) before doing anything else, then resume from the open wave.

Deliverable lane, format, and the empty-info interview

Never block collection on the shape of the deliverable, and never guess it either. Read references/deliverable-phase.md sections 1-6 before writing the brief, then:

1. Derive first. Name the lane (template-strict, template-vibe, no-format, edit-existing) and the promised formats from the request and its destination (the reference's section 3). When the request refers to an existing deliverable, decide its state with node "$SKILLDIR/scripts/report-tools.mjs" outcome state --deliverable --session-dir "$SESSIONDIR": partial resumes the skeleton on disk, complete means edit-existing and never a regenerated report. $SKILL_DIR is this skill's own directory, the folder containing this SKILL.md.
2. Read the requester's format memory when the memory tool exists: read the projected pointer system/human/report-style.md, then reference/human-report-style.md, and take the choice recorded for the most similar context (same destination kind and audience) as the first option.
3. Ask only what is still missing: at most the reference's three questions (destination and format, audience and length, template lineage) in one askuserquestion call with waitForAnswer: false, each with its default first, a free-text "describe the format" path, and "don't care, you decide". Collection starts without waiting; a late answer is folded in until the assembly lane starts, and after that it becomes a re-render request.
4. Record it. Write ## Deliverable into brief.md (lane, state, formats, destination, audience, template, format description, each with answeredby: user|default|request) and open the manifest in the same step: node "$SKILLDIR/scripts/report-tools.mjs" outcome init --promised --lane --session-dir "$SESSION_DIR".

Phase 6 opens by turning the recorded fields into design-spec.md.

Phase 1 — Stand up the team (DEFAULT composition)

When the user asked for MASS research, the team is not the collection surface. "mass ulw research", "mulw research", "ulw mass research" — in any language — order over-collection that 8 member slots cannot produce. Read mass-ulw's references/planning.md and run collection as chained dags at its mass scale: a 60+ node opening wave covering every angle the topic has, routed across quick / unspecified-low / unspecified-high / deep-low in one graph, each wave's EXPAND leads defining the next wave's nodes until convergence, and a synthesis that reduces through several parallel architect nodes into one architect reducer (ultrabrain substitutes when the config has no architect category). Everything else in this skill still binds: the deliverable interview, the journal, the claim graph, the convergence rules, and the delivery gates. Keep a small team alongside the graph for the debate rounds of Phase 3 — attack is conversation, and dag nodes do not talk.

Otherwise a team is the DEFAULT for ulw-research, not an option: a lead one member surfaces almost always reshapes what another should search next, and debate needs live cooperating members, not fire-and-forget workers. Create it immediately after the brief:

team_create({
  inline_spec: {
    name: "ulw-research-<slug>",
    members: [
      { name: "<axis-owner-1>", category: "deep-low", prompt: "<member brief for axis 1 — see below>" },
      { name: "<axis-owner-2>", category: "deep-low", prompt: "<member brief for axis 2>" },
      ...
      { name: "skeptic", category: "ultrabrain", prompt: "<debate brief — see below>" },
    ],
  },
})

• One member per axis — by part, ownership, or perspective, never a job title. Each Phase 0 axis is one member owning one concrete slice: a codebase part, a source territory, or a question lens. No two members share an angle. "Backend researcher" or "the web person" gives no real boundary and invites overlap — name what the member owns.
• Always the maximum roster. The team is not sized by taste: fill every member slot the runtime allows (8) on every run. If you can only name five axes, split the broadest one — by source territory, by time window, by perspective — until the roster is full. A half-empty team is a half-covered topic.
• Compose deliberately across the whole category surface. Before writing the roster, enumerate what this session actually has: every category your omo.json defines (quick, unspecified-low, unspecified-high, deep, ultrabrain, architect, writing, artistry, ...) and every non-curated subagenttype. Give each slot the cheapest tier that can do ITS job — broad recon on the fast tiers, contested analysis on deep/unspecified-high, attack lanes on ultrabrain, language work on writing. Mixed tiers by design, never one tier across the whole board. A category member must also carry its brief as prompt (the runtime requires both), and a subagenttype member must name a non-curated agent — a member with neither is rejected at parse. NEVER name a curated agent (explore, librarian, plan-consultant, plan-reviewer) as a member — the runtime rejects them; they run as task lanes instead.
• Routing words from the user are literal. "quick", "fast", "deep", "모두 quick으로", "최대 병렬" are hard instructions, not mood. Route exactly as asked and journal requested tier -> spawned category -> fallback reason for every slot. Silently promoting a "quick" roster to a heavier tier is a defect, and so is dropping to a cheaper one without saying why.
• Debate members are mandatory for ultradebate/hyperdebate, default otherwise. At least one skeptic/red-team member (ultrabrain or your strongest reasoning category) whose ONLY job is attack: cross-critique claims, evidence quality, source independence, synthesis structure, and report choices before they reach the deliverable. When the user says ultradebate or hyperdebate, run at least two attacking perspectives (e.g. a skeptic attacking evidence and a contrarian attacking framing) and give every contested claim a full round.
• The raise law — broadcast every lead the instant it surfaces. Member briefs order relentless over-communication: every new lead, finding, contradiction, and dead end goes to task_send({ to: "lead" }) the moment it surfaces, never hoarded for a final dump. Through long passes members send WORKING: - , and BLOCKED: the moment progress stops. Too many small updates is correct here; going quiet is the only failure. They arrive as injected notifications — act on each lead the moment it lands (Phase 3), never holding out for a member's final reply.
• Track shared state in the open. Register the axes and major leads on the team tasklist (taskcreate) and keep them current (taskupdate) so a member reconnecting after a crash can see the whole board.

Team lifecycle — one team, or a sequence, decided by scale and precision

One team is the floor, not the ceiling. Decide from the brief at Phase 0, and re-decide when the topic grows:

Sequencing beats stuffing — a fresh premium team reading a finished journal reasons better than the same researchers grading their own homework. Build each team from a written brief, run its round, and disband it before the next one starts; never leave two research teams live at once.

Member brief contract

Every member prompt contains, in order:

1. TASK: — one imperative line naming the role and the owned axis.
2. The budget lift: "This is an explicit exhaustive-research assignment. Your default retrieval budget and stop-when-answered rules do not apply — run the full protocol below and raise every lead."
3. Scope — the axis, the sources to hit, and what a complete answer contains.
4. The role protocol (Phase 2).
5. The raise law and the reply tail. EXPAND markers, observation candidates, and claim candidates travel back as message text to to: "lead", never as files. Every substantial report ends with:

## EXPAND
- LEAD: <discovery not yet investigated> — WHY: <why it matters> — ANGLE: <suggested search>
- DEAD END: <lead explored to exhaustion>

A member with nothing to expand sends ## EXPAND followed by none — . A report missing