Research

• Every URL in a delivered answer was fetched and its page supports the claim it is cited for; a link that could not be verified was dropped, never shipped.
• The depth matches the ask: "research" alone ran Standard, Quick ran only on an explicit quick request or an everyday look-up, and each tier's vendor roster was complete (a higher tier never drops a vendor a lower tier uses), or the answer says which slot was swapped and why.
• Findings carry [HIGH] [MED] [LOW] [CONFLICT] tags from cross-checking, and a disagreement between sources is shown with both sides rather than averaged away.
• A sentiment or lived-experience answer rests on the communities first (each platform's official API, then a licensed data product only where the platform has no API, then web search for context), quotes people verbatim with their thread URLs, and carries the disappointments alongside the praise.
• A claim that a venue exists, is open, keeps certain hours, or books a certain way matches the official page of the venue or its host property.
• A request this skill should not own left it: entity background to an OSINT skill, papers to ArXiv, an X URL through the X-URL gate with the path taken named in the answer.

Verification runs in three layers, inspired by Nomad (arXiv:2603.29353). Intents/Verify.md holds the full protocol.

DeepVerifiedResearch runs through the Workflow tool: Workflow({scriptPath: 'skills/Research/Intents/DeepVerifiedResearch.mjs', args: {question: '...'}}), with args passed as an object, never a JSON string. It is slower than Extensive (~150-190s vs ~60-90s); reach for it only when claims must be bulletproof. Its votes judge each claim on the explorer's quote and never fetch the page, so its result returns urlVerification: pending with urlCheckPairs; run those through Tools/VerifyUrls.ts before delivering any of its URLs.

Intents/research.mjs is EXPERIMENTAL and not a route until one smoke run lands (command in References/WorkflowScripts.md); StandardResearch.md and ExtensiveResearch.md stay the default path.

Before executing, check for user customizations at <configRoot>/LIFEOS/USER/CUSTOMIZATIONS/SKILLS/Research/ (configRoot is $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR when set, else ~/.claude). When the directory exists, its PREFERENCES.md, configurations and resources override the defaults here; when it does not, the skill defaults stand.

First-time setup (vendor accounts, keys, the codex tool) is in Setup.md.

• X/Twitter-URL gate, checked before anything else. Scan the prompt for x\.com|twitter\.com (e.g. rg -q 'x\.com|twitter\.com' on the request text) before spawning any research agents. X blocks WebFetch and generic scraping, so generic research agents pointed at the URL burn turns and return nothing. When the gate fires, take the first path below that is actually available, and say in the response which path you took and why; a silent skip is a failure:
  1. A dedicated X/Twitter reader skill, if one is installed — it is the highest-fidelity path.
  2. X_BEARER_TOKEN in the environment → read the post via X API v2 directly.
  3. The principal's own exported X data, if provided.
  4. None of the above → tell the user plainly that X does not allow automated reads here and ask them to paste the post text. Then research the substance normally. Research the rest of the request either way: one unreadable X URL never cancels the whole task.
• Recap journalism is not fan sentiment. Press articles invent consensus, fabricate timestamps, and parrot promoter copy, so on a community-sentiment question X goes through the X-URL gate ladder above and recap web search stays the secondary source. Quick mode can return recap-only and miss the actual fan data; pull Reddit directly rather than waiting to be asked again.
• API first, a licensed data product second where there is no API, web search last; never invert. For every platform, try the official API path (Reddit JSON, X API v2 if X_BEARER_TOKEN is set, YouTube Data API v3 if YOUTUBE_API_KEY is set) before a vendor data product (BrightData, or a data-product skill the install carries). A vendor product is the fallback for platforms with no API, within each platform's terms; for Reddit and X, when the API path is unavailable or rate-limited, the run reports it rather than switching routes. A vendor product also covers data shapes the API does not expose (YouTube transcripts use fabric -y even when the Data API key is set). The cascade inversion is the recurring failure mode. SourceRoutingProtocol.md § Cascade Priority has the per-platform table.
• A refused page is reported, not worked around (principal, 2026-10-12, revised). A 403, a bot wall, a CAPTCHA or a login wall on a cited source means the site does not allow automated access. The run tags that finding unverified, names the URL and the reason in the response, and looks for the same fact in another source, the site's official API, or a copy the principal can open. A page that only fails because it renders client-side is read in a real browser through Interceptor. Paid vendor products (Bright Data, Apify actors) need the principal's yes first, except a single cheap call, and are used within the target site's terms.
• Everyday look-ups are research too, and route to Quick (2026-09-30). Some questions never say "research": "best in ", "a plan for our trip", "can non-guests use 's facilities", "where is this venue". Sent to raw WebSearch, single-summary answers put wrong claims in a plan that a Quick run caught (closed days, departed staff, changed booking channels). Unless the principal asks for depth, treat a travel, venue, or best-of question as Quick mode.
• For "does it exist / is it open", the venue's own page wins (2026-09-30). A single search answer can deny a venue that its host property's own page lists. When a claim is about whether a venue exists, its hours, or how to book, check the official site of the venue or its host property before stating it.
• An Extensive run with only Anthropic, Google and Perplexity agents is a failed roster (2026-09-26). A run left OpenAI and Grok out because both were gated on narrow technical/discourse signals. Every vendor runs at the top tier. Grok's brief stays public-only; when the question carries Restricted Data, its slot becomes a Claude slot and the response says so.
• Due diligence, background checks and people lookup go to a dedicated OSINT/entity-investigation skill, not Research. Research handles general investigation; entity-specific deep investigation belongs to that skill.
• "extract alpha" routes to the ExtractAlpha intent, not the ExtractWisdom skill. They are different things.
• DeepVerifiedResearch.mjs is a Workflow-tool script, not a markdown intent. Invoke it with the Workflow tool (scriptPath), never by reading it and "doing the steps": dedup, fetch-budget, vote-counting, and the abstention guard exist to run deterministically in code. Running it spawns many agents and live web calls, so it is opt-in multi-agent: confirm with the principal (or use args.test: true for a small smoke run) rather than firing a full ~30–95-agent run unprompted.

• Skills this one uses: BeCreative (deep thinking for extract alpha), BrightData (single-URL fetches, crawls and search results through the vendor's documented products).