Cross-Verified Research

Systematic research engine with anti-hallucination safeguards and source quality tiering.

Rules (Absolute)

1. Never fabricate sources. No fake URLs, no invented papers, no hallucinated statistics.
2. Confidence gate. If confidence < 90% on a factual claim, do NOT present it as fact. State uncertainty explicitly.
3. No speculation as fact. Do not present unverified claims using hedging language as if they were findings. Banned patterns: "아마도", "~인 것 같습니다", "~로 보입니다", "~수도 있습니다", "probably", "I think", "seems like", "appears to be", "likely". If a claim is not verified, label it explicitly as Unverified or Contested — do not soften it with hedging.
4. BLUF output. Lead with conclusion, follow with evidence. Never bury the answer.
5. Minimum effort. At least 5 distinct search queries per research task. At least 5 verified sources in final output.
6. Cross-verify. Every key claim must appear in 2+ independent sources before presenting as fact.

Pipeline

Execute these 4 stages sequentially. Do NOT skip stages.

Stage 1: Deconstruct

Break the research question into atomic sub-questions.

Input: "Should we use Bun or Node.js for our backend?"
Decomposed:
  1. Runtime performance benchmarks (CPU, memory, startup)
  2. Ecosystem maturity (npm compatibility, native modules)
  3. Production stability (known issues, enterprise adoption)
  4. Developer experience (tooling, debugging, testing)
  5. Long-term viability (funding, community, roadmap)

• Identify what requires external verification vs. internal knowledge
• Flag any sub-question where confidence < 90%

Stage 2: Search & Collect

For each sub-question requiring verification:

1. Formulate diverse queries — vary keywords, include year filters, try both English and Korean
2. Use WebSearch for broad discovery, WebFetch for specific page analysis
3. Classify every source by tier immediately (see Source Tiers below)
4. Extract specific data points — numbers, dates, versions, quotes with attribution
5. Record contradictions — when sources disagree, note both positions

Minimum search pattern:

Query 1: [topic] + "benchmark" or "comparison"
Query 2: [topic] + "production" or "enterprise"
Query 3: [topic] + [current year] + "review"
Query 4: [topic] + "issues" or "problems" or "limitations"
Query 5: [topic] + site:github.com (issues, discussions)

Fallback when WebSearch is unavailable or returns no results:

1. Use WebFetch to directly access known authoritative URLs (official docs, GitHub repos, Wikipedia)
2. Rely on internal knowledge but label all claims as Unverified (no external search available)
3. Ask the user to provide source URLs or documents for verification
4. Reduce the minimum source requirement but maintain cross-verification where possible

Stage 3: Cross-Verify

For each key finding:

• Does it appear in 2+ independent Tier S/A sources? → Verified
• Does it appear in only 1 source? → Unverified (label it)
• Do sources contradict? → Contested (present both sides with tier labels)

Build a verification matrix:

| Claim | Source 1 (Tier) | Source 2 (Tier) | Status |
|-------|----------------|----------------|--------|
| Bun 3x faster startup | benchmarks.dev (A) | bun.sh/blog (B) | Verified (note: Bun's own blog = biased) |

Stage 4: Synthesize

Produce the final report in BLUF format.

Output Format

## Research: [Topic]

### Conclusion (BLUF)
[1-3 sentence definitive answer or recommendation]

### Key Findings
[Numbered findings, each with inline source tier labels]

1. **[Finding]** — [evidence summary]
   Sources: 🏛️ [source1], 🛡️ [source2]

2. **[Finding]** — [evidence summary]
   Sources: 🛡️ [source1], 🛡️ [source2]

### Contested / Uncertain
[Any claims that couldn't be cross-verified or where sources conflict]
- ⚠️ [claim] — Source A says X, Source B says Y

### Verification Matrix
| Claim | Sources | Tier | Status |
|-------|---------|------|--------|
| ... | ... | ... | Verified/Unverified/Contested |

### Sources
[All sources, grouped by tier]

#### 🏛️ Tier S — Academic & Primary Research
- [Title](URL) — Journal/Org (Year)

#### 🛡️ Tier A — Trusted Official
- [Title](URL) — Source (Year)

#### ⚠️ Tier B — Community / Caution
- [Title](URL) — Platform (Year)

#### Tier C — General
- [Title](URL)

Source Tiers

Classify every source on discovery.

Tier	Label	Trust Level	Examples
S	🏛️	Academic, peer-reviewed, primary research, official specs	Google Scholar, arXiv, PubMed, W3C/IETF RFCs, language specs (ECMAScript, PEPs)
A	🛡️	Government, .edu, major press, official docs	.gov/.edu, Reuters/AP/BBC, official framework docs, company engineering blogs (Google AI, Netflix Tech)
B	⚠️	Social media, forums, personal blogs, wikis — flag to user	Twitter/X, Reddit, StackOverflow, Medium, dev.to, Wikipedia, 나무위키
C	(none)	General websites not fitting above categories	Corporate marketing, press releases, SEO content, news aggregators

Tier Classification Rules

• Company's own content about their product:
  • Official docs → Tier A
  • Feature announcements → Tier A (existence), Tier B (performance claims)
  • Marketing pages → Tier C
• GitHub:
  • Official repos (e.g., facebook/react) → Tier A
  • Issues/Discussions with reproduction → Tier A (for bug existence)
  • Random user repos → Tier B
• Benchmarks:
  • Independent, reproducible, methodology disclosed → Tier S
  • Official by neutral party → Tier A
  • Vendor's own benchmarks → Tier B (note bias)
• StackOverflow: Accepted answers with high votes = borderline Tier A; non-accepted = Tier B
• Tier B sources must never be cited alone — corroborate with Tier S or A

When to Use

• Technology evaluation or comparison
• Fact-checking specific claims
• Architecture decision research
• Market/competitor analysis
• "Is X true?" verification tasks
• Any question where accuracy matters more than speed

When NOT to Use

• Creative writing or brainstorming (use creativity-sampler)
• Code implementation (use search-first for library discovery)
• Simple questions answerable from internal knowledge with high confidence
• Opinion-based questions with no verifiable answer

Integration Notes

• With brainstorming: Can be invoked during brainstorming's "Explore context" phase for fact-based inputs
• With search-first: search-first finds tools/libraries to USE; this skill VERIFIES factual claims. Different purposes.
• With adversarial-review: Research findings can feed into adversarial review for stress-testing conclusions