research
Personal research plugin for Claude Code. Keeps a central, searchable, lifecycle-managed knowledge base of everything you research — with project-local symlinks so research stays visible alongside code.
Install
/plugin marketplace add tyroneross/research-plugin
/plugin install research@research-plugin
Then install the Python dependency:
pip install pyyaml # required
pip install sympy # optional (v0.2 symbolic verification)
Restart Claude Code. The /research:* slash commands should autocomplete; the research skill activates on phrases like "research X", "investigate Y", "what's the current state of Z".
First run
By default, any /research ... session writes its markdown corpus to ~/dev/research/ and keeps its SQLite index there too. Or bootstrap explicitly:
python ~/.claude/plugins/research/research.py init
Roots
The plugin now supports separate roots for content and derived index/state:
RESEARCH_CONTENT_DIR — canonical markdown corpus, generated markdown views, archive, inbox, project symlinksRESEARCH_INDEX_DIR — SQLite DB, linked-project registry, verifier logs, extract cacheRESEARCH_BASE_DIR — legacy compatibility alias; if the new vars are unset, both roots fall back here
Default behavior:
- content root:
~/dev/research/
- index root:
~/dev/research/
Layout
Content root:
<content-root>/topics/<topic-tree>/<slug>.md — canonical entries<content-root>/indices/<topic>.md — auto-generated Maps of Content<content-root>/index.md, by-topic.md, by-project.md, review-due.md, PORTFOLIO.md — auto-generated dashboards<content-root>/archive/ — archived entries (never deleted, redirect stubs left behind)<content-root>/inbox/ — fleeting notes / files queued via /research:ingest --inbox<content-root>/projects/ — project symlink views
Index root:
<index-root>/.db.sqlite3 — FTS5 index, domain scores, verifier state<index-root>/.linked-projects.json — linked external project registry<index-root>/verifier-log/ — verification artifacts<index-root>/.extract-cache/ — Omniparse extract cache
Per-project research
Two mechanisms, depending on who authored the research.
Plugin-authored entries — when an entry's frontmatter includes projects: [foo] and a project directory exists, /research:save maintains a symlink at <content-root>/projects/foo/<slug>.md pointing to the canonical entry under <content-root>/topics/. The project directory is not modified. Pass --with-project-index if you also want a <project>/RossLabs-Research.md index file written into the project (opt-in).
Pre-existing project research — for directories like ~/dev/git-folder/SpeakSavvy-iOS/docs/research/ that predate this plugin and should not be restructured, use /research:link-project <name> <path>. The plugin walks the directory recursively for *.md files, extracts a title and a 1-line summary from each, records the registration in <index-root>/.linked-projects.json, and creates symlinks at <content-root>/projects/<name>/<filename>. The source directory is never modified.
Both mechanisms surface in <content-root>/PORTFOLIO.md under separate sections ("Plugin-managed projects" and "Linked external research directories"). /research:index refreshes both.
Legacy v0.3.0 artifacts (<project>/research/ file copies, <project>/research/.live/ symlinks, <project>/RossLabs-Research.md) are preserved as-is — v0.3.1 does not write to these paths by default, but also does not delete them. A one-time note is printed when the plugin touches a project that still has them.
Subcommands
