---
name: research-ops-skills
description: Use when planning, funding, scoping, or synthesizing enterprise research across workstreams — clinical study design, R&D program finance, market sizing/surveys, or product/user research. Triggers o...
---

# Research Operations — Domain Orchestrator

The Research Operations surface is **how the enterprise plans, funds, scopes, and synthesizes research** across four workstreams: clinical R&D, R&D finance, market research, and product research. This orchestrator forks its context, routes your inquiry to one of four sub-skills, then returns a digest. Heavy intake (protocol drafts, program ledgers, survey exports, interview transcripts) stays in the forked context.

This is the enterprise counterpart to the academic `research/` domain. If your question is about **finding** literature, grants, or patents, use `research/`. If it is about **planning, funding, scoping, or synthesizing** research as an operational discipline, you are in the right place.

## When to invoke

| Symptom | Sub-skill |
|---|---|
| "We're designing a Phase 2 trial — what's the endpoint and sample size?" | `clinical-research` |
| "What's our R&D program burn, and is this cost CapEx or OpEx?" | `research-finance` |
| "What's the TAM for this product, and how do we survey the segment?" | `market-research` |
| "How many users do we interview, and how do we synthesize the findings?" | `product-research` |

## Routing logic (deterministic)

Same two-signal threshold pattern as `commercial-skills`. Single-signal → clarifying question. Mixed signals → highest-confidence first, chain second in a follow-up turn. Never silently chain.

### Signal table

| Signal class | Keywords | Sub-skill |
|---|---|---|
| **CLINICAL** | clinical trial, study design, protocol, endpoint, sample size, power, phase 1/2/3, biostatistics, eligibility, feasibility, estimand | `clinical-research` |
| **RD_FINANCE** | R&D budget, program budget, burn, runway, F&A, indirect rate, overhead, capitalize vs expense, R&D capex, portfolio ROI, rNPV | `research-finance` |
| **MARKET** | TAM, SAM, SOM, market sizing, survey design, sampling, margin of error, segmentation, competitive intelligence, market research | `market-research` |
| **PRODUCT** | user interview, JTBD, usability test, concept test, prototype test, discovery research, research repository, insight synthesis, saturation | `product-research` |

## Workflow (Matt Pocock grill discipline)

Derived from Matt Pocock's `grill-with-docs` pattern: **explore-then-ask, one question per turn with a recommended answer, walk the decision tree depth-first, track dependencies, anchor every challenge in the research canon** (`references/` of each sub-skill).

### Step 1 — Explore before asking

Check the user's working directory first:
- Is there a protocol draft, program ledger, TAM model, or interview guide already in the workspace?
- Does the inquiry already disambiguate the lane (e.g., "what sample size for a two-arm trial" — that's `clinical-research`, no question needed)?
- Is there an artifact filename that resolves the lane (`protocol.json` → clinical; `program-budget.json` → finance; `tam-model.json` → market; `interview-guide.md` → product)?

If the workspace resolves the lane, **route silently**.

### Step 2 — If still ambiguous, ONE forcing question with a recommended answer

Matt's rule: never bundle. Always recommend.

Pattern:
```
Q1/1: [precise question naming the two candidate lanes]
Recommended: [Lane X, because <signal-table rationale>]

(Confirm, or override?)
```

### Step 3 — Decision-tree walk for multi-lane inquiries

If the inquiry legitimately crosses two lanes (e.g., "design this trial AND budget it" = CLINICAL + RD_FINANCE), walk depth-first:

1. Highest-confidence lane first → run sub-skill in forked context → digest
2. Ask: "Now run [second lane]? Recommended: yes, because [dependency]."
3. Confirm before chaining.

Never silently chain.

### Step 4 — Invoke sub-skill in forked context

Forward original prompt + structured inputs (protocol JSON, program ledger CSV, market model, observation export).

### Step 5 — Return digest with cited canon challenge

≤ 200 words: analyzed, top 3 findings (anchored to a canon citation), top 3 next actions (named human owner where applicable), artifact path, and **one grill challenge** for the user. Examples:

- "Your power calc assumes a 0.5 effect size with no published anchor. ICH E9 requires a justified, clinically meaningful difference. Where did 0.5 come from?"
- "Your TAM is a single top-down number (1% of a $40B market). Bessemer market-sizing discipline requires a bottoms-up cross-check. What's units × price × adoption?"

## Forcing-question library (grill-with-docs pattern)

Grill the user on lane-defining decisions before invoking the sub-skill. One per turn, recommended answer, canon citation:

- **CLINICAL lane**: "Is your primary endpoint a clinical outcome or a surrogate — and if surrogate, is it validated for this indication? Recommended: clinical outcome unless the surrogate is on FDA's validated table. Canon: FDA Surrogate Endpoint Table; BEST glossary."
- **RD_FINANCE lane**: "Is this spend in the research phase or the development phase, and can you evidence technical feasibility? Recommended: research = expense; development = capitalize-candidate only with feasibility evidence, routed to a named finance owner. Canon: IAS 38; ASC 730."
- **MARKET lane**: "Is your TAM top-down or bottoms-up — and have you computed it both ways to triangulate? Recommended: both; reconcile the delta. Canon: Bessemer / a16z market-sizing; Fermi estimation."
- **PRODUCT lane**: "Is this study generative (discover problems) or evaluative (test a solution)? Recommended: name it first; the method follows. Canon: Rohrer's landscape of UX research methods (NN/g)."

Never run a sub-skill until the lane-defining decision is locked.

## Onboarding-first (per sub-skill)

Before invoking a sub-skill for the first time in a workspace, point the user at that skill's onboarding questionnaire so the tools run pre-configured to their context:

```bash
python3 skills/<sub-skill>/scripts/onboard.py          # interactive Q&A
python3 skills/<sub-skill>/scripts/onboard.py --show    # questions + current config
```

Each sub-skill has its **own** question set (clinical: area/alpha/power/dropout/owners · finance: area/F&A/runway/standard/owner · market: profile/confidence/MoE/method · product: profile/insight-threshold/method/stakes). Answers persist to `~/.config/research-ops/<sub-skill>.json` (or `./.research-ops/<sub-skill>.json` with `--scope project`) and are consumed automatically by every tool in that skill. Customization is mandatory discipline here, not decoration — surface the onboarding step when a user starts a fresh research workstream.

## Autoresearch handoff (isolated, opt-in)

Each sub-skill ships its own `scripts/ar_evaluator.py` — an **isolated** bridge to `engineering/autoresearch-agent`. Invoke autoresearch **only when the user explicitly asks** to "optimize", "improve", or "run a loop". The handoff is per-skill (no shared coupling): the loop edits the skill's input file and the evaluator scores it (clinical → `feasibility_composite` higher; finance → `runway_months` higher; market → `tam_divergence` lower; product → `validated_insights` higher). Never auto-start a loop; never let the loop edit the evaluator.

## Assumptions

1. User has research authority OR is preparing analysis for someone who does.
2. User wants **deterministic decision support**, not the final answer — a clinician approves the protocol, a controller books the entry, the human picks the market number.
3. Inputs may be partial — every sub-skill ships a templated sample so the user can see the shape before filling in their own.

## Non-goals

- Not an EDC, clinical-trial-management system, accounting system, survey platform, or research repository.
- Does not give clinical, accounting, or legal advice as fact. Every output is **a recommendation + named human owner**.
- Does not store research history across sessions.

## Distinct from

- **`research/` (academic)** — that domain **finds** literature, grants, and patents. This domain **plans, funds, scopes, and synthesizes** research.
- **`ra-qm-team`** — that's **regulatory/QM submission** (ISO 13485/14971, MDR, FDA 510(k)/PMA/QSR). clinical-research designs the **study**; it routes submission out to ra-qm-team.
- **`finance/financial-analysis`** — that's **corporate close + valuation**. research-finance manages **R&D program/portfolio spend**.
- **`research/grants`** — that's **funding discovery**. research-finance manages **money already won**.
- **`product-team`** — that's **persona/journey artifacts, discovery sprints, and live A/B experiments**. product-research is the **method + repository discipline**.
- **`marketing-skill`** — that's **campaign analytics and demand-gen**. market-research is **upstream methodology**.

## Output artifacts

| Sub-skill | Artifact |
|---|---|
| clinical-research | `protocol_synopsis.md` + `sample_size.json` |
| research-finance | `rd_program_budget.md` + `capex_opex_routing.json` |
| market-research | `market_sizing.md` + `sample_plan.json` |
| product-research | `research_plan.md` + `insight_synthesis.json` |

## Anti-patterns (do not)

- ❌ Present a clinical power/endpoint output as fact — it is an **estimate** with a named clinical owner
- ❌ Auto-decide capitalize-vs-expense — route to a **named finance owner**
- ❌ Report a market size as a single unsourced number — show **method + both-ways triangulation + assumptions**
- ❌ Assert a product insight from a single participant — flag it as an **anecdote**
- ❌ Run all 4 sub-skills "to be thorough" — pick one, digest, chain if needed

## References

- Clinical canon: ICH E8(R1)/E9/E9(R1), CONSORT, SPIRIT, FDA Multiple Endpoints
- R&D finance canon: IAS 38, ASC 730, 2 CFR 200, Cooper stage-gate
- Market canon: Cochran, Dillman, Kotler, Bessemer market-sizing
- Product canon: Nielsen, Guest et al., Christensen JTBD, ResearchOps/Polaris
- Path-B build pattern: `documentation/implementation/research-ops-expansion-plan.md`