RPI Research

Goal

Produce a dated, human-readable primary research artifact that helps the end user understand the result, challenge the evidence, suggest changes, and make any required decision without planning, implementing, or reviewing. Lead with the summary, material discoveries, findings, and alternatives; keep supporting context with the finding that needs it.

Preserve the canonical evidence, decision state, and planning-readiness record beneath that reader-first synthesis. Each executed research cycle completes wider, deeper, and contrarian waves in that order. The artifact, not the chat response, is the durable source of truth.

Use templates/research.md as the primary-artifact skeleton. Read references/research.md for detailed research-posture selection, the three-wave cycle, extension registry, optional helpers, participation protocol, evidence contract, and response guidance. Follow the shared conventions in copilot-tracking.instructions.md.

When the invoking agent or the user's request names the Research task or its slug in lower-kebab-case, use that name verbatim as {{task_slug}}; otherwise derive {{task_slug}} from the primary target with lower-kebab-case. {{YYYY-MM-DD}} is an ISO 8601 calendar date: use the date that the invoking agent or the user's request explicitly supplies for evidence paths, such as a dated session directory's date; otherwise use the current date. The default artifact path is .copilot-tracking/research/{{YYYY-MM-DD}}/{{task_slug}}-research.md. When the caller supplies a trusted sandbox or evidence root, the artifact path is exactly <root>/research/{{YYYY-MM-DD}}/{{task_slug}}-research.md. A pass that continues the current request extends the current document. When the session already holds research for an earlier request, start a new document named for the new request's work instead: use the name the invoking agent gives the work, or a short lower-kebab-case name that describes the work and differs from the session's other document names, such as task-board-polish, in place of {{task_slug}} in the path, and title the document for that work. Continue the session's question, finding, C#, W#, and decision numbering from the earlier documents so every ID stays unique; findings count on in order from the earlier documents' findings. Record which earlier documents the numbering continues from. Record the resolved root, date source, and path before writing, and return a new path so the parent can list it.

Flow