Research Department

This is a Hermes-native research-department workflow skill.

Why This Exists

research-department exists so Hermes users can start complex research-ops patterns without manually designing profiles, cron, knowledge storage, synthesis tooling, and delivery glue, while OMH keeps every runtime claim observed-only.

Do Not Use When

• The user only needs a one-off current-source lookup; use research.
• The user only needs a one-off business synthesis; use research-brief.
• The request is pure scheduling with no source collection or synthesis; use automation-blueprint.
• The user asks for coding implementation; prepare a selected executor/runtime handoff after the research plan is accepted.

Examples

Good example:

• Prompt: Set up a Scout, Analyst, and Briefer research flow for daily competitor and market changes.
• Expected behavior: Prepare research_department_plan/v1 with Scout/Analyst/Briefer lanes, source inbox buckets, briefing status, knowledge-store and synthesis-tool readiness, and observed-only evidence requirements.
• Why: The request is recurring, source-backed, and operational; a single research brief would miss the ongoing workflow/status boundary.

Bad example:

• Prompt: research-department prove the synthesis tool queried the knowledge base and posted the Slack brief.
• Expected behavior: Ask for observed synthesis-tool and gateway delivery evidence or mark those states as not_observed.
• Why: The workflow pack can prepare the operating pattern, but it cannot prove external tool execution or delivery.

Completion Checklist

• The research question, source boundaries, recency assumptions, and confidence level are named.
• Observed sources, inference, synthesis, and unresolved retrieval gaps are separated.
• Follow-up planning or handoff uses the research summary without calling it execution evidence.

Recovery Notes

• If sources cannot be accessed, state the retrieval gap and use only observed local context.
• If evidence is thin or one-sided, lower confidence and ask for a narrower source boundary.

Workflow Lane

• Current lane: Research and company ops (product-docs, source-finder, web-research, research, model-optimization, inference-serving, model-finetuning, research-brief, +20 more) - research, signals, ops, and briefings.
• If intent belongs to another lane, hand back to oh-my-hermes or name the adjacent workflow.
• Shared product, routing, compatibility, and evidence rules: omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md.

Use When

Use when Hermes should turn an ongoing or recurring research request into a prepared Scout -> Analyst -> Briefer workflow with source inbox, knowledge-store and synthesis-tool readiness, and briefing status without claiming research execution.

Strong routing signals: `research-department`, `research department`, `research ops department`, `research operations department`, `scout analyst briefer`, `scout analyst brief`, `daily research department`, `competitor research department`, `market research department`, `paper review`, `weekly paper review`, `research paper review`, `paper research`, `notebooklm research`, `obsidian research vault`, `knowledge store`, `knowledge storage`, `synthesis tool`, `knowledge summarizer`, `research inbox`, `source inbox`, `briefing status`, `리서치 부서`, `리서치 조직`, `리서치 운영`, `수집 합성 브리핑`, `지식 저장소`, `요약 도구`, `경쟁사 리서치 부서`

Catalog Metadata

Category: research Phase: research-department Hermes role: researcher Quality tier: research-ops-gated Reasoning demand: standard

Quality bar:

• Name topic, source boundaries, cadence, delivery target, knowledge-store destination, and synthesis-tool readiness.
• Map Scout, Analyst, and Briefer lanes to concrete OMH skills and source inbox buckets.
• Expose collected, synthesized, briefed, conflict, and verification counts as status, not execution proof.
• List required evidence before claiming retrieval, synthesis, storage, delivery, or verification.

Handoff policy:

Keep the research operating model in Hermes. Map Scout to research/source-finder, Analyst to research-brief/web-research, and Briefer to report-package or meeting/report workflows. Record retrieval, synthesis-tool output, knowledge-store writes, delivery, and verification only from observed evidence.

Required inputs:

• topic or watch area
• source boundaries
• cadence
• delivery target
• knowledge-store preference
• synthesis-tool preference

Expected outputs:

• research_department_plan/v1
• source_inbox/v1
• briefing_status/v1
• not-evidence boundary

Artifact expectations:

• research_department_plan/v1 under .omh/research-department/plans when a wrapper or CLI records it

Safety rules:

• Do not claim web retrieval, synthesis-tool query, knowledge-store write, cron creation, gateway delivery, or verification from a prepared plan.
• Keep raw findings, processed notes, briefs, conflicts, and verification needs in separate source inbox buckets.
• Treat vendor-specific tool names as optional aliases for synthesis-tool and knowledge-store readiness unless observed evidence exists.

Runtime Evidence

Preferred harness for this skill: research-department.

omh runtime record --skill research-department --harness research-department --status started

Record observed delegation results; otherwise return not_available or not_observed. Prepared OMH routing is not execution, review, CI, merge-readiness, or merge evidence.

• Treat wrapper memory/context summaries as advisory local context, not proof of opaque Hermes memory reads or changes. Preserve workflow intent and stop conditions; verify before claiming completion. Reply in the user's own words and the host's own voice: its SOUL.md persona owns reply language, tone, speech level, and sentence endings, progress updates included (where it sets no language, use the one the user wrote in), and OMH shapes structure and content only; OMH's record terms (surface, lane, wrapper, handoff, evidence boundary, not_observed) stay in records and tool calls, never in the sentence the user reads unless they ask about one; and when a stop condition or a decision the user owns ends the turn, offer the next action as a question rather than declaring what will not be done.

Use Hermes-native subagent/delegation features when available: native subagents -> Hermes delegation when available, otherwise sequential lanes.

Shared product, compatibility, topology, memory, harness, and execution rules: omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md. Load it when applicable; otherwise name an unavailable capability.