Agent skill

smith-research

Proactive research protocol for version queries, APIs, and best practices. Use when answering questions about library versions, API documentation, or technology assessments. Covers research triggers, source citation, and confidence indicators.

View SKILL.md on GitHub Repository
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Install this agent skill to your Project

npx add-skill https://github.com/tianjianjiang/smith/tree/main/smith-research

SKILL.md

Proactive Research Protocol

  • Load if: Queries about versions, APIs, libraries, best practices
  • Prerequisites: @smith-guidance/SKILL.md

CRITICAL: Mandatory Research Triggers (Primacy Zone)

Temporal constraint: ALWAYS get today's real date first as critical context for research queries.

MUST research when:

  • Version/release queries ("latest version of X")
  • API/documentation queries ("how to use X API")
  • Best practices queries ("recommended way in [current year]")
  • Technology assessment ("should I use X or Y")
  • Unfamiliar technology (not in training data)

Research Methods (Priority Order)

  1. Official docs - Most authoritative

    • fetch https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio.html

  2. Package registry - Version info

    • npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/[package]/latest
    • PyPI: https://pypi.org/pypi/[package]/json
    • GitHub: https://api.github.com/repos/[owner]/[repo]/releases/latest

  3. Web search - Broad queries

    • Include current year: "Next.js 15 best practices [current year]"

  4. GitHub repo - Source of truth

    • README, CHANGELOG, release notes

Source Citation

Always include:

  • Source URL
  • Date of retrieval
  • Version referenced

Format:

text
"React 19 introduced `feature_name` [1]"

[1] Source Name: URL (retrieved YYYY-MM-DD)

Confidence indicators:

  • High: "Per official documentation..."
  • Medium: "Based on recent community discussion..."
  • Low: "My training data suggests X, but couldn't verify..."

Paywall Workarounds

Medium.com: Replace domain with freedium-mirror.cfd

  • Pattern: https://freedium-mirror.cfd/https://medium.com/@author/article
  • Use when WebFetch returns paywall/403 errors

When NOT to Research

  • Fundamental concepts (won't change)
  • Opinion/analysis requests
  • User provides current info themselves

Proactive Behavior

Research when:

  • Answering would require guessing
  • User's code references unfamiliar library
  • Error suggests version incompatibility
  • User mentions "latest", "current", "2024", "2025"

Inform user:

  • "I checked the current documentation..."
  • "I couldn't fetch latest info, but based on training..."
  • Claiming certainty about versions without verification
  • Providing outdated API examples when docs accessible
  • Skipping research when accuracy matters
  • @smith-guidance/SKILL.md - Honest principle
  • @smith-tools/SKILL.md - MCP fetch configuration

ACTION (Recency Zone)

Before answering version/API questions:

  1. Check if research trigger applies
  2. Fetch official docs or registry
  3. Cite source with URL and date
  4. Flag if info conflicts with training data

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