[IMPORTANT] Use TaskCreate to break ALL work into small tasks BEFORE starting.Critical Thinking Mindset — Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: Never present guess as fact — cite sources for every claim, admit uncertainty freely, self-check output for errors, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence — certainty without evidence root of all hallucination.
AI Mistake Prevention — Failure modes to avoid on every task: - Check downstream references before deleting. Deleting components causes documentation and code staleness cascades. Map all referencing files before removal. - Verify AI-generated content against actual code. AI hallucinates APIs, class names, and method signatures. Always grep to confirm existence before documenting or referencing. - Trace full dependency chain after edits. Changing a definition misses downstream variables and consumers derived from it. Always trace the full chain. - Trace ALL code paths when verifying correctness. Confirming code exists is not confirming it executes. Always trace early exits, error branches, and conditional skips — not just happy path. - When debugging, ask "whose responsibility?" before fixing. Trace whether bug is in caller (wrong data) or callee (wrong handling). Fix at responsible layer — never patch symptom site. - Assume existing values are intentional — ask WHY before changing. Before changing any constant, limit, flag, or pattern: read comments, check git blame, examine surrounding code. - Verify ALL affected outputs, not just the first. Changes touching multiple stacks require verifying EVERY output. One green check is not all green checks. - Holistic-first debugging — resist nearest-attention trap. When investigating any failure, list EVERY precondition first (config, env vars, DB names, endpoints, DI registrations, data preconditions), then verify each against evidence before forming any code-layer hypothesis. - Surgical changes — apply the diff test. Bug fix: every changed line must trace directly to the bug. Don't restyle or improve adjacent code. Enhancement task: implement improvements AND announce them explicitly. - Surface ambiguity before coding — don't pick silently. If request has multiple interpretations, present each with effort estimate and ask. Never assume all-records, file-based, or more complex path.
Quick Summary
Goal: Synthesize evidence base into final structured report using enforced template.
Workflow:
- Load evidence — Read evidence base from deep-research
- Load template — Read enforced template from.claude/templates/
- Synthesize — Write report following template structure
- Citation check — Verify every claim has citation
- Confidence summary — Aggregate scores, flag gaps
Key Rules:
- MUST ATTENTION use enforced template structure — all sections required
- Every factual claim inline-cited:
[N]referencing source table - Knowledge gaps section mandatory
Be skeptical. Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence percentages (Idea should be more than 80%).
Knowledge Synthesis
Step 1: Load Evidence
Read .claude/tmp/_evidence-{slug}.md and .claude/tmp/_sources-{slug}.md.
Inventory:
- Total findings with confidence scores
- Unresolved discrepancies
- Remaining gaps
Step 2: Load Template
Read the enforced template: .claude/templates/research-report-template.md
Every section in the template MUST ATTENTION appear in the final report.
Step 3: Synthesize Report
Write to docs/knowledge/research/{slug}.md:
For each template section:
- Map relevant findings from evidence base
- Write content with inline citations
[N] - Declare confidence per finding
- Note cross-cutting patterns and contradictions in Analysis section
Step 4: Citation Audit
Verify:
- Every factual claim has at least one
[N]citation - Every source in the Sources table is referenced at least once
- No orphan citations (referencing non-existent source)
Step 5: Confidence Summary
Calculate overall report confidence:
- Average of all finding confidence scores
- Weight by finding importance
- Flag any <60% findings prominently
Output
Final report: docs/knowledge/research/{descriptive-slug}.md
Clean up working files from .claude/tmp/ after successful synthesis.
Closing Reminders
- IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION break work into small todo tasks using
TaskCreateBEFORE starting - IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION search codebase for 3+ similar patterns before creating new code
- IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION cite
file:lineevidence for every claim (confidence >80% to act) - IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION add a final review todo task to verify work quality
- MUST ATTENTION apply critical thinking — every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: never present guess as fact.
- MUST ATTENTION apply AI mistake prevention — holistic-first debugging, fix at responsible layer, surface ambiguity before coding, re-read files after compaction.