Research Skill

Use this skill when you need benchmark-style research across public web|community|social sources by default, with explicit shopping opt-in only for commercial comparison tasks.

Pack Contents

• artifacts/research-workflows.md
• assets/templates/compact.md
• assets/templates/context.json
• assets/templates/report.md
• scripts/run-research.sh
• scripts/render-output.sh
• scripts/write-artifacts.sh
• scripts/validate-skill-assets.sh
• Shared robustness matrix: ../opendevbrowser-best-practices/artifacts/browser-agent-known-issues-matrix.md

Fast Start

./skills/opendevbrowser-research/scripts/validate-skill-assets.sh

./skills/opendevbrowser-research/scripts/run-research.sh "browser automation" 30 context

./skills/opendevbrowser-research/scripts/render-output.sh "browser automation" compact

Supporting Surfaces

• Use browser replay (screencast-start / screencast-stop) when claim review needs temporal UI evidence or parity proof from browser-backed runs.
• Use desktop observation only for read-only external-window or native-dialog evidence that materially affects the research artifact chain.
• Use --challenge-automation-mode off|browser|browser_with_helper for bounded browser-scoped computer use in research workflows; it is not a desktop agent.

Core Rules

• Define timebox first (--days or --from/--to).
• Prefer explicit sources for high-stakes claims.
• Persist artifacts and return reproducible paths.
• Mark unsupported claims as tentative; do not overstate certainty.
• Honor bounded retries and backoff windows under 429 pressure.

Parallel Multitab Alignment

• Apply shared concurrency policy from ../opendevbrowser-best-practices/SKILL.md ("Parallel Operations").
• Run research acceptance in managed, extension, and cdpConnect where browser-backed evidence capture is used.
• Keep provider query orchestration mode-agnostic; isolate browser interaction per session worker.

Robustness Coverage (Known-Issue Matrix)

Matrix source: ../opendevbrowser-best-practices/artifacts/browser-agent-known-issues-matrix.md

• ISSUE-06: upstream throttling and retry discipline
• ISSUE-09: pagination/result drift across sources
• ISSUE-10: locale/currency normalization consistency
• ISSUE-12: stale evidence and claim traceability

Workflow

1. Resolve timebox (days or from/to).
2. Choose sources (auto|web|community|social|shopping|all).
3. Run opendevbrowser research run.
4. Return requested mode output and artifact path.

Commands

opendevbrowser research run --topic "<topic>" --days 30 --source-selection auto --mode context

opendevbrowser research run --topic "<topic>" --source-selection auto --mode json

opendevbrowser research run --topic "<topic>" --sources web,shopping --mode md

Notes

• auto is the recommended default for topical research.
• In the current contract, both auto and all resolve to web|community|social.
• Use --source-selection shopping or explicit --sources ...shopping... to include shopping only when commercial intent is explicit.
• Use --mode path with scripts/write-artifacts.sh when you need replayable handoff bundles.
• For browser-backed release proof and mode sweeps, follow the canonical direct-run evidence policy in ../opendevbrowser-best-practices/SKILL.md.