By name: reference description: >- Reference project knowledge advisor. Answers questions about tracked GitHub repos — their architecture, API surfaces, implementation patterns, and evolution. Draws on accumulated per-project knowledge and cross-project insights. Invoke for questions about reference projects, pattern comparisons, or API lookups across tracked repos. argument-hint: "[question about reference projects, e.g. 'how does applesauce handle event filtering?']" allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Write, Edit, WebFetch, WebSearch, Bash context: fork agent: reference-researcher
Freshness Gate
Current Unix timestamp: !date +%s
Read .claude/references.yaml to identify tracked repos. If this file does
not exist, tell the user to run /reference-skills:reference-init and stop.
Read .claude/reference-knowledge/_meta.yaml (global) and each relevant
repo's _meta.yaml. If any last_fetch_date does not exist, or if the
current timestamp minus last_fetch_date exceeds 604800 (7 days), you
MUST run a knowledge refresh for those stale repos before answering. Follow
the research methodology in the supporting documents and write all findings
to the project-local .claude/reference-knowledge/ directory — never modify
plugin files.
If all relevant knowledge is fresh, proceed directly to answering.
User Question
$ARGUMENTS
Reference Documents
The following supporting documents are available in your skill directory at
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/:
| File | Content |
|---|---|
| research-methodology.md | Tiered approach to studying repos: README → tree → API surface → deep dive. Stopping criteria. Monorepo handling. |
| knowledge-schema.md | Templates for architecture.md, api-surface.md, patterns.md, changelog.md. _meta.yaml schemas. |
| github-fetching-patterns.md | Raw content URLs, GitHub API endpoints for trees/releases/metadata, WebSearch patterns, rate limiting. |
| cross-project-analysis.md | Identifying shared patterns, comparison dimensions, connecting insights to the consumer project. |
| config-and-setup.md | Full references.yaml schema, directory structure, adding/removing repos, .gitignore guidance. |
Read the relevant documents to inform your research approach. Consult your agent memory for methodological insights from prior sessions.
Response Format
- Cite which reference repo the answer comes from. Include repo alias and source file paths when known.
- Provide concrete code examples from reference repos when they illustrate a point — actual types, signatures, and patterns.
- When comparing repos, present trade-offs rather than rankings. Frame comparisons around the consumer project's specific context.
- Flag knowledge age — if findings are older than 14 days, note this.
- Connect findings to the consumer project — explain relevance, not just facts.
- If you need to fetch live documentation to verify details, do so.