Research Questions

• For SDK docs, library usage, best practices
• Skip if the task is purely internal

Research Guidelines

1. Read all @-mentioned files immediately and FULLY

   • Any files mentioned with @ are auto-injected into your context
   • Review them carefully before creating questions

2. Focus ONLY on the current state of the codebase

   • Do NOT include questions about what should be built
   • Do NOT suggest improvements unless asked
   • Do NOT ask about what the codebase needs or what changes need to happen
   • Only ask questions that would document what exists, where it exists, and how components are organized

3. Create questions about:

   • Current implementation details
   • Relevant patterns or constraints
   • Potential complexities or edge cases
   • Architecture, dependencies, and implementation details

Good questions will include some basic path steering, like "... in apps/wui ..." or "in the riptide-* packages"

CRITICAL - DO NOT LEAK ANY IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS OR THE NATURE OF YOUR TASK INTO THE QUESTION LIST. NO "HOW WOULD WE XYZ" - ONLY "HOW DOES IT WORK"

4. Work iteratively with the user to refine questions

You are teaching the other agent how to do good research, so:

YOU MUST FORMAT YOUR QUESTIONS like the below, as high level codebase exploration. If something is relevant to the change, you MUST ask about it, even if you already know the answer:

Output Format

1. Read the research questions template

Read({SKILLBASE}/references/research_questions_template.md)

Follow this format, using an appropriate number of questions for the task (no more than 8, no less than 2, use your judgement)

2. Write the research questions to .humanlayer/tasks/TASKNAME/YYYY-MM-DD-research-questions.md

   • First, check if a related task directory exists: ls .humanlayer/tasks | grep -i "eng-XXXX"
   • If the directory doesn't exist, create: .humanlayer/tasks/ENG-XXXX-description/
   • Format: YYYY-MM-DD-research-questions.md where YYYY-MM-DD is today's date
   • Directory naming:
     • With ticket: .humanlayer/tasks/ENG-1478-parent-child-tracking/2025-01-08-research-questions.md
     • Without ticket: .humanlayer/tasks/authentication-flow/2025-01-08-research-questions.md

3. Read the final output template

Read({SKILLBASE}/references/research_questions_final_answer.md)

4. Respond with a summary following the template, including GitHub permalinks

When you write or edit documents in .humanlayer/tasks/, a cloud permalink is automatically provided in the hook response.

• The permalink appears as additionalContext after Write/Edit/MultiEdit operations
• Use this permalink in your final output for easy navigation
• Example format: http(s)://{DOMAIN}/artifacts/{artifactId}