research-and-vote

Research and Vote Skill

Full documentation:

• CONSENSUS_PROTOCOLS.md
• Research CONTRIBUTING.md

Process

Phase 1: Research

1. Check research registry first: grep -ri "keyword" docs/research/
2. Gather primary sources (official docs, specs, RFCs)
3. Document findings with source links

Phase 2: Proposal

Create proposal with:

• Problem statement
• Proposed solution
• Alternatives considered
• Trade-offs

Phase 3: Voting

Voting Agents: Architect, Security, DevEx, AI/ML, PM

Thresholds:

Decision Type	Threshold
Reversible changes	Majority
Architecture	Supermajority
Security-critical	Unanimous

See CONSENSUS_PROTOCOLS.md for protocol selection matrix.

Phase 4: Documentation

Record decision in GitHub issue with voting record.

Output Format

# Decision Record: [Topic]

## Status: [Approved/Rejected]

## Voting Record

| Agent | Vote | Reasoning |
| ----- | ---- | --------- |

Anti-rationalization — Research and vote

Excuse	Counter
"I already know the answer"	Then write up the alternatives anyway. The vote isn't to discover the answer; it's to surface what you missed.
"Skip the research, just vote"	A vote without research surfaces opinion, not informed judgment. Cite primary sources.
"Simulated votes are fine for this"	Per CLAUDE.md and memory: simulated votes are random. Never use for real decisions.
"Unanimous would be too slow"	Unanimous applies to security-critical and breaking-API. Match the threshold to the reversibility.
"We can revisit if it's wrong"	Some decisions are expensive to reverse (data shape, public API, dep choice). Apply higher threshold accordingly.

Red flags

• Proposal lists no alternatives or only "do X / do nothing"
• Voter reasoning is one sentence ("approve") with no specific cite
• simulateVotes: true for anything other than unit tests
• Vote happens before research is done
• Decision recorded but no GitHub issue or commit links the vote

Verification checklist

• Research cites primary sources (official docs, RFCs, papers — not blog posts only)
• At least 2 alternatives considered with why-rejected reasoning
• consensus_vote ran with real CLIs (simulateVotes: false)
• Threshold matches decision type (majority / supermajority / unanimous)
• Decision Record posted as a GitHub issue or comment with voter cites
• Voter reasoning includes confidence and specific cites — no rubber-stamps