researcher

name: researcher description: Run and review the Corvus Researcher loop as an active-scope evidence intake, stats, and proposal-routing skill. tier: SKILL risk: medium intent_category: DOCUMENT entry_surface: docs terminal_required: false

SKILL: Researcher

Researcher is the Corvus scout. It finds useful evidence, grades it against the Focus Charter, and routes only bounded proposal candidates into CStar.

Researcher is not a general backlog generator. It is a reproducible, maintainable, modular, and trackable evidence pipeline.

Active Scope

The active Corvus research surface is:

CStar, Kernel, Researcher, Forge, Skills, XO, Moonshot

ENM is business-separated by default. Parked spokes remain inactive unless the Focus Charter is explicitly updated.

Use This Skill When

• Reviewing or running Researcher evidence intake.
• Checking whether a Researcher proposal fits the Focus Charter.
• Auditing whether proposal sync preserved focus metadata, stats, and Gungnir scoring.
• Preparing a Researcher runbook or proposal package for CStar review.

Do Not Use This Skill To

• Dispatch live model work without a separate operator decision.
• Accept, merge, publish, or implement proposals by itself.
• Route around CStar beads, GitHub issues, PMT review, or operator gates.
• Turn parked spokes or business-separated work into active Researcher scope.

No live Researcher dispatch is authorized by this skill.

Required Flow

1. Confirm CStar health and route through Augury when operating inside the Corvus estate.
2. Confirm the Focus Charter active scope before intake.
3. Collect or review evidence without secrets, private account data, or live operational leakage.
4. Produce a Researcher brief with source framing and a clear disposition: discard, watch, brief, or proposal candidate.
5. Sync proposal candidates through the cstar-console proposal pipeline.
6. Require focus_contract and researcher_stats on proposal records.
7. Keep execution separate: CStar acceptance and operator dispatch are distinct gates.

Stats Contract

Researcher proposal records must carry researcher.stats.v1.

The stats object is designed for statistical analysis over Researcher quality, not for automatic promotion. It includes:

• schema_version
• computed_at
• focus_contract
• features
• gungnir

The features section captures countable proposal properties such as target path count, change outline count, implementation steps, verification commands, research basis count, review packet count, risk critiques, and evidence packet count.

The gungnir section uses Gungnir v1.0 axes:

• logic
• style
• intel
• gravity
• vigil
• evolution
• anomaly
• sovereignty
• overall
• stability
• coupling
• aesthetic

The Gungnir score is a tracking signal. It is not an execution authority, a merge authority, or proof that a proposal is good.

Acceptance Gates

A Researcher proposal is not acceptable unless:

• it is inside active scope or explicitly operator-approved as an exception
• its focus_contract.allowed value is true
• it has researcher.stats.v1
• the Gungnir matrix is present and bounded to 0..10 values
• its dispatch packet carries the same stats for downstream outcome analysis
• a later edit recomputes stats before dispatch

Validation Commands

For cstar-console proposal sync changes:

rtk python3 -m pytest -s tests/test_sync_research_proposals.py -q -k "researcher_stats or gungnir or focus_contract"
rtk python3 -m pytest -s tests/test_sync_research_proposals.py -q
rtk python3 -m pytest -s tests/test_unattended_researcher.py -q
rtk python3 -m py_compile scripts/sync_research_proposals.py scripts/run_unattended_researcher.py
rtk node tests/research_dispatch_ui_test.mjs
rtk git diff --check

For this CStar skill contract:

rtk node scripts/run-tsx.mjs --test tests/unit/test_researcher_skill_contract.test.ts
rtk git diff --check

Reporting

Researcher reports should distinguish:

• source evidence
• Focus Charter fit
• Researcher stats and Gungnir values
• whether the work is watch-only, brief-only, or proposal-candidate
• whether any live dispatch, model spend, secret access, MongoDB mutation, or PR action is being requested

If the answer is unclear, classify the work as watch-only or route it to CoS for a yellow decision.