Research until the deliverable's ready
Chase the most important evidence gaps until a memo, brief, spec, or page is genuinely ready to use.
Research [question or topic] and produce a decision-ready [memo, brief, specification, recommendation, page, or other artifact] for [audience or decision]. If the question, audience, or intended artifact is missing, ask one focused question before starting. State the decision the artifact should support, its acceptance criteria, the allowed source scope, and the research budget. If no budget is supplied, use no more than ten strong sources or ninety minutes. Prefer current primary sources where available. After each research pass, update the artifact and identify the largest remaining evidence gap, contradiction, or uncertainty. Continue only if resolving it could materially change the decision and the budget allows another pass. Never invent evidence or hide uncertainty. Stop when the artifact meets its acceptance criteria, important claims trace to sources, and remaining uncertainty is explicit. Otherwise stop as blocked or exhausted. Finish with the completed artifact, sources, findings, tensions, confidence level, open questions, and recommended next step.
claude-code · codex
Use this when
Use this when research should end in a specific decision, brief, recommendation, specification, page, or other artifact rather than a pile of notes.
How it runs
- Define the decision, audience, artifact format, acceptance criteria, source scope, and research budget.
- Gather the strongest relevant evidence and separate findings, tensions, implications, and open questions.
- Update the artifact, identify the largest remaining evidence gap, and research again only when it could change the decision.
- Stop with a sourced decision-ready artifact or an honest blocked or exhausted result.
Done when
✓ The artifact is ready to support its stated decision. The deliverable meets its acceptance criteria, traces important claims to sources, and states material uncertainty instead of hiding it.
Why it works
Research can expand indefinitely when the output and decision are vague. Tying each research pass to a concrete artifact keeps effort proportional to what the decision actually needs.
Implementation note
This loop creates an artifact from research. Use the artifact-to-skill loop later if the proven method behind that artifact should become reusable.
More content loops
Interview five buyers, fix the copy
Interview recent buyers in batches, track recurring objections, and propose evidence-backed landing-page copy.
Improve [landing page or purchase page] using objections from recent buyers. Before contacting anyone, identify the approved buyer group, outreach channel, privacy rules, and message. Obtain explicit approval for the outreach. Interview buyers in batches of five, up to fifteen people total. Ask each person one question: What almost stopped you from buying? Record their exact words while protecting their identity and honoring any consent or communication requirements. After each batch, group repeated concerns and draft a proposed copy change for the point on the page where each concern is most likely to arise. Do not publish the copy without approval. Use the next batch to check whether the same concern still appears. Stop when the concern no longer repeats, fifteen interviews are complete, the outreach budget ends, or access is blocked. Finish with anonymized quotes, recurring concerns, proposed copy, evidence by batch, and the recommended page change.
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Fact-check before you publish
Inventory checkable claims, verify them against primary sources, repair high-risk mismatches, and log what stays unresolved.
Before publishing [draft], inventory every factual, statistical, quoted, or attributed claim a reader could verify. Find the best current primary source for each and label it supported, outdated, misattributed, unsupported, or unverifiable. Fix the riskiest mismatch, then recheck that claim and anything depending on it. Repeat until no high-risk unsupported claim remains or five rounds are exhausted. Never invent a source, cite evidence that does not support the claim, or alter a quotation. Ask before changing a named person’s quote or a legal, medical, or financial statement. Stop without changes if there are no checkable claims; stop as blocked when adequate evidence is unavailable. Finish with the claim-to-source table, corrections made, unresolved claims, and decisions requiring an editor.
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Draft a LaTeX preprint, claim by claim
Build a seven-section LaTeX preprint with native figures, traceable claims, repeated compilation, and stated weaknesses.
Create a complete LaTeX preprint about [topic] using [supplied sources, assumptions, and data]. If the topic or required source material is missing, request it and stop. Do not invent claims, citations, or data. Use explicit placeholders for missing information. Include exactly these sections in order: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References. Build every figure and table with native LaTeX tools such as TikZ, pgfplots, and booktabs. Do not use \includegraphics, \svg, or external image files. Every substantive claim must trace to a numbered equation, citation, supplied datum, or labeled assumption. Compile using the project's documented command or latexmk when no command is specified. Inspect compilation errors, warnings, typography, cross-references, and figure placement. Fix the most serious issue and compile again for at most five rounds. Stop when compilation has zero errors, all seven sections are present, every figure and table is referenced before it appears, and no banned command remains. Otherwise stop as blocked or exhausted. Finish with the .tex file, compilation command and log, structural checks, three substantive weaknesses, three typography issues, and unresolved placeholders.
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