Research Archive Skill

Archive a completed research plan after findings have been synthesized and consumed.

Process

1. Identify the research to archive:

   • If the user specifies a number/name, use that
   • Otherwise, scan research/NNNN-*/ (exclude archive/ and unnumbered legacy directories) for research with status "synthesized" in .research-state.json
   • If multiple candidates, ask user to choose

2. Verify completion:

   • Check that synthesis.md exists
   • Check that findings files exist for each question
   • If synthesis is missing, ask: "Research has no synthesis yet. Archive anyway?"

3. Update research files:

   Update research-plan.md status:

   markdownCopy

   ## Status: ARCHIVED
   
   **Archived:** YYYY-MM-DD
   

   Update .research-state.json:

   jsonCopy

   {
     "status": "archived",
     "archived_at": "2026-01-28T10:30:00Z",
     "updated_at": "2026-01-28T10:30:00Z",
     ...existing fields...
   }
   

4. Move to archive:

   bashCopy

   mv research/NNNN-topic-name research/archive/
   

5. Confirm to user:

   Copy

   **Archived:** `research/archive/NNNN-topic-name/`
   **Status:** ARCHIVED
   **Questions:** N answered
   **Synthesis:** Yes/No
   **Archived:** YYYY-MM-DD
   

Notes

• Research referenced by implementation plans (via relative paths like ../../research/NNNN-topic/) will have broken links after archiving. The archive path becomes ../../research/archive/NNNN-topic/. Consider this before archiving research that active plans reference.
• Unnumbered legacy research directories (e.g., dagre-layout/, edge-routing-deep-dive/) should not be archived through this skill — they predate the numbering convention.