qsearch

name: qsearch description: "Use this skill when the user asks you to quickly research, investigate, look into, find out about, compare, summarize, or get up-to-speed on a topic that benefits from fresh information from the web. Trigger for prompts like 'research X', 'qsearch Y', 'what are the best Y for Z', 'compare A vs B', 'find me sources on...', 'is it true that...', 'what's the current state of...', 'dig into...', or any question where a good answer requires fetching and synthesizing web content. Also trigger when the user invokes /qsearch. This skill batches any necessary clarifying questions into ONE up-front round before executing, so the user can answer them, walk away, and return to a finished artifact instead of being pinged for follow-ups throughout. Do NOT trigger for narrow factual questions answerable from training data, for code lookups better served by Grep/Glob, when the user provides specific URLs to fetch (just fetch them), or when the user explicitly says 'no web search' / 'from what you know'." allowed-tools: WebSearch WebFetch AskUserQuestion Glob Grep Read Write mcp__claude_ai_Linear__get_issue mcp__claude_ai_Linear__save_issue mcp__claude_ai_Linear__list_projects mcp__claude_ai_Linear__get_project mcp__claude_ai_Linear__list_documents mcp__claude_ai_Linear__get_document mcp__claude_ai_Linear__create_document

qsearch

(short for "quicksearch" — rhymes with "research", which is exactly what it does)

Perform a focused piece of web research and return structured findings. The defining design principle of this skill is:

Batch every clarifying question into one up-front round, then run to completion uninterrupted. Asking questions is fine — asking questions spread across a long timeline is not. Ask only what's materially important, treat everything else as a stated assumption, and let the user answer once and walk away.

The user should be able to kick this off, answer a small batch of up-front questions, walk away and live life, and return to a finished artifact — not be tethered to the chat fielding "wait, did you mean X or Y?" pings throughout the run.

Tools

This skill declares these tool categories in allowed-tools:

• WebSearch and WebFetch — the primary research engines (Phase 4).
• AskUserQuestion — the one-shot batch-clarification tool (Phase 2) and persistence confirmation (Phase 6).
• Glob, Grep, Read — discover context in the calling directory (README, CLAUDE.md) to infer persistence target.
• Write — persist the report as a markdown file when the user confirms.
• Linear MCP tools (list_projects, get_project, list_documents, get_document, create_document) — persist the report as a Linear doc when the user confirms.

If WebSearch and WebFetch are unavailable in the current session (e.g. policy restriction, offline environment), stop at the end of Phase 3 and return the research plan without executing it — do not attempt to answer from memory alone, and do not silently degrade to training-data facts as if they were fresh sources.

Phase 1 — Interpret

Rename the session

After interpreting the request, rename the session so the user can identify it at a glance (e.g. in a terminal tab). A good name is a 2–4 word summary of the research question — e.g. "LLM eval frameworks (qsearch)" or "nix flake best practices (qsearch)".

If a tool or command is available to rename the session programmatically, use it. Otherwise, suggest the user rename it — but don't block on this. Move on to research either way.

Restate

Restate the request in one or two sentences as you understand it. Be explicit about what deliverable you think is being asked for: a short answer, a prose summary, a comparison table, a ranked list, a recommendation, a literature overview, a fact-check, etc.

Phase 2 — Clarify once, up front

Walk the rubric below and identify every interpretive choice the prompt left open:

• Scope — geography, industry, audience, language, platform
• Time window / recency — last week, last year, last decade, all-time
• Depth — quick scan (3–5 sources) vs. deep dive (15+ sources)
• Deliverable shape — bullets, prose, table, pros/cons, recommendation, sourced fact list
• Perspective — neutral overview vs. opinionated pick
• Inclusions the prompt didn't spell out but a reasonable reader might expect
• Exclusions the prompt might implicitly want
• Definitions — any term in the prompt with multiple meanings
• Success criteria — what "good enough" looks like for this answer

For each choice, decide ask or assume:

• Ask only when both conditions hold: (a) the answer would materially change the research — different sources, different deliverable, different scope — and (b) a reasonable default has a real chance of being wrong. When in doubt, assume.
• Assume everything else. Anything a reasonable reader would guess correctly, anything low-stakes, anything easy for the user to course-correct from the final output.

Batch the questions

If you have one or more questions, issue all of them in a single AskUserQuestion tool call — one round, then no more. Prefer 0–3 questions; 4 is the hard cap. If you're tempted to ask a 5th, you're asking things that should be assumptions instead.

For each question:

• Offer concrete options — never a free-text-only prompt. Options are faster for a user who wants to answer and walk away.
• Put the most likely answer first.
• Keep the question text short and specific.
• Only ask things whose answer you'll actually use to shape the research.

If you have zero questions, skip the tool call entirely and write:

No clarification needed — proceeding directly.

Commit to the interpretation

After the user answers (or immediately if you asked nothing), write out the locked decisions in one combined list — answered questions and assumed defaults side by side, flagged so the user can see which is which. Format:

• D1 (scope): US market — you chose
• D2 (recency): Last 18 months — assumed, easy to broaden
• D3 (shape): Ranked shortlist of 5 with one-paragraph rationales — assumed
• D4 (depth): ~8 sources, cross-checked on load-bearing claims — assumed

Aim for 4–8 total decisions (asked + assumed combined). If you have fewer than 3, you probably missed some interpretive choices — go back through the rubric.

The hard rule

Once Phase 2 closes, no more questions for the rest of the run. The research executes to completion without further interruption — that's the entire UX contract this skill exists to uphold. If something surfaces mid-research that would have been worth asking, note it in "Caveats & open questions" at the end and keep going.

Phase 3 — Research plan

Before running any searches, outline what you're going to do:

• Queries — list 3–6 specific search queries you intend to run, in priority order
• Source tiers — which kinds of sources you'll prioritize (primary docs, official announcements, peer-reviewed, reputable reporting, practitioner blogs, forums) and which you'll deprioritize (SEO farms, affiliate roundups, undated content mills, AI-generated listicles)
• Stopping criteria — what tells you the research is "done enough" given the depth assumed in Phase 2 (e.g. "stop after 6 sources if findings converge", "stop after cross-checking the top 3 claims")

Keep this section short — half a dozen bullets, not an essay.

Phase 4 — Execute

Run the searches. Fetch full pages with WebFetch when search snippets are insufficient. As you work, keep a running list of sources: URL, title, publication date if known, and a one-line note of what you took from it.

Execution guidelines:

• Prefer primary sources. Official docs, press releases, SEC filings, GitHub repos, academic papers, original reporting.
• Cross-check load-bearing claims. Any number, date, attribution, or headline-level claim should appear in at least two independent sources before you state it as fact.
• Note disagreements. If sources conflict, don't silently pick one — surface the conflict in the Caveats section.
• Flag suspicious content. SEO-farm roundups, undated claims, unsourced stats, AI-generated "review" sites. Either verify elsewhere or drop.
• Don't retry dead ends. If a search or fetch fails, try an alternative source rather than retrying the same URL or near-identical query.
• Respect the stopping criteria. Over-research is a failure mode too.

Phase 5 — Deliver

Structure the final answer in this exact order:

Summary

A 2–4 sentence direct answer to the original question, shaped per the assumed deliverable. This is what a reader sees first and should be able to act on.

Key findings

The substance. Use the format committed to in Phase 2 (table, ranked list, pros/cons, prose sections, etc.). Cite inline with [1], [2], etc. Keep it scannable — the user is returning to a finished artifact, not settling in for a novel.

Caveats and open questions

Anything you couldn't resolve, conflicts between sources, areas where a different assumption would have materially changed the conclusion, and what a deeper pass would look like. Be honest about confidence levels.

Sources

A numbered list, referenced inline in Key Findings. For each source:

[N] Title — Publisher (YYYY-MM-DD if known) — URL
    One-line note on what this source contributed.

Decisions recap

Restate the locked decisions from Phase 2 in a compact form so the user can course-correct in a single reply without re-reading the whole output. Cover both what they answered and what you assumed, and give a concrete nudge for how to change each one. Format:

• D1 (scope): US market (you chose) → say "global" to redo
• D2 (recency): last 18 months (assumed) → say "historical" to broaden
• D3 (shape): ranked shortlist of 5 (assumed) → say "table" / "prose" / etc. to reshape
• D4 (depth): ~8 sources (assumed) → say "deep dive" for more

Phase 6 — Persist

After printing the report to chat (Phase 5), offer to persist it as a named research report. This phase is the only exception to the "no more questions after Phase 2" rule — persistence is a post-delivery HITL gate, not a mid-research interruption.

Ticket-scoped invocations

If a ticket ID was explicitly part of the invocation (e.g. qsearch VID-524), read the ticket with get_issue before starting Phase 1. If the ticket does not look like a research-scoped ticket (e.g. it describes implementation work, a bug fix, or a feature rather than investigation), flag this before proceeding:

"VID-524 looks like an implementation ticket, not a research one. Running qsearch against it will produce a report but won't map naturally to the ticket's scope. Options: (a) proceed anyway, (b) I suggest creating a research sub-issue or blocking research ticket first — do you want me to outline that structure?"

Offer the options via AskUserQuestion. If the navigator proceeds, continue normally. If they want a research sub-issue, outline a proposed ticket title/description in chat for review — do not create it automatically.

Report naming convention

Reports follow a fixed title scheme:

Report: [Topic] [YYYY.Qn] [Scope]

Examples:

• Report: PM Startup Landscape 2026.Q2 Global
• Report: EV Charging Infrastructure 2026.Q3 Europe
• Report: B2B SaaS Pricing Models 2026.Q1 US

Markdown filename equivalent

When persisting as a file, convert to kebab-case and drop the colon:

• report-pm-startup-landscape-2026-q2-global.md
• report-ev-charging-infrastructure-2026-q3-europe.md

Rules: drop Report: colon, lowercase everything, spaces → hyphens, period separator . between year and quarter becomes - (i.e. 2026.Q2 → 2026-q2), no underscores.

Infer the persistence target

Best-effort inference from the calling directory context. Check in this order:

1. Linear project signal: Read README.md and CLAUDE.md in the working directory. If either contains a Linear project URL (e.g., https://linear.app/{org}/project/{slug}), default to creating a Linear doc in that project.
2. No Linear signal: default to a markdown file in the current working directory.
3. Neither is clear: ask explicitly.

This inference is best-effort. If the signal is ambiguous (multiple project URLs, or a URL that looks stale), fall back to asking rather than guessing wrong.

Confirm before writing

Use AskUserQuestion with the inferred target and proposed title:

• If Linear: "Save as Report: PM Startup Landscape 2026.Q2 Global in the {project-name} Linear project?" with options: Yes / Save as local file instead / Skip — don't persist
• If file: "Save as report-pm-startup-landscape-2026-q2-global.md in the current directory?" with options: Yes / Save as Linear doc instead / Skip — don't persist

If the user skips, stop. The chat output is the deliverable.

Write

• Linear doc: Use create_document with the report title and the full report content (adapted for Linear markdown — no front matter, inline metadata instead). Start the document body with *[ai:claude-code]* so readers know before diving in. If a README: [Topic] series doc exists in the target project, check it for any required internal structure or provenance block format and follow it.
• Markdown file: Use Write to create the file with the kebab-case filename. Include a YAML front matter block with title, date, scope, and sources count. On the first line of the document body (after the front matter), add > *Authored by Claude Code.* so the attribution is visible before the content.

Ticket status transition

After the report is delivered to chat and persistence is handled (or skipped): if a ticket ID was explicitly part of the invocation (e.g. qsearch VID-524), call save_issue with id: {ticket-id} and state: "In Review". Findings are ready for operator evaluation — the ticket should reflect that. No comment needed; the report itself is the artifact.

Only apply this when a ticket ID was explicitly in the invocation. Do not transition on open-ended research queries with no ticket context.

Anti-patterns

• Don't trickle questions across multiple turns. All asking happens in one AskUserQuestion batch in Phase 2, then never again. Multi-round clarification defeats the walk-away UX.
• Don't ask free-text questions when concrete options exist. A user who wants to answer and walk away will click options much faster than they'll type prose.
• Don't exceed 4 up-front questions. If you want a 5th, demote one of the others to an assumption.
• Don't ask questions mid-research. If something material surfaces after Phase 2, note it in Caveats and keep going. The run must complete without further interruption.
• Don't hedge every sentence. Good research states findings with citations and distinguishes confidence in the Caveats.
• Don't dump raw search results or fetched pages. Synthesize.
• Don't pad. If the answer is short, the answer is short. Depth should match assumed depth.
• Don't skip Phase 2 on the grounds that "the request seemed clear." It rarely is — walking the rubric is the whole reason this skill exists.
• Don't cite a source you didn't actually read. If a search snippet is all you have, either fetch the page or don't cite it as a source.
• Don't mix phases. Phase 1 is interpretation, Phase 2 is clarification + commitment, Phase 3 is the plan. Don't start planning in Phase 1 or researching in Phase 3.
• Don't persist without showing the output first. The report prints to chat before any persistence question is asked. The user must see what they're saving.
• Don't persist without confirmation. Phase 6 always asks. Never silently write a file or create a Linear doc.
• Don't hardcode the persistence target. Infer from directory context, fall back to asking. The inference is best-effort, not a hard rule.