Research Scout

Maintain AZIMUTH's empirical integrity by tracking source publications and staging updates to references/base-rates.md.

This skill has two modes. Trigger is determined from the user's request.

SCOUT — Search for new publications. Stage validated findings. PROMOTE — Review research/staged-findings.md. Promote, hold, or discard each staged entry.

Trigger PROMOTE when user says "promote," "review staged findings," or "what's in the queue."

Source Map

references/base-rates.md draws from 8 source families. Each has a day-of-week assignment. Do not search all groups every run.

SCOUT Mode

Step 1 — Search

For today's source family, run:

1. WebSearch: "[source name]" [current year] report
2. WebSearch: site:[publisher domain] [topic] [current year]

Maximum 3 searches per source family. Do not search topics outside the assigned family.

Step 2 — Filter

Keep only:

• New edition or meaningful update to a previously cited source
• Data that materially changes a figure in references/base-rates.md (direction reversal, or >15% change in a cited rate)
• A new rigorous source that improves on a currently hedged or weakly attributed claim
• Retraction or significant methodological critique of a currently cited source

Discard:

• Blog posts or secondary commentary citing the same primary source already in base-rates.md
• Consultant reports without disclosed methodology
• Publications predating 2023 (within training data; not net-new signal)
• Any result without a verifiable URL to the primary source

Step 3 — Stage

Append each surviving finding to research/staged-findings.md:

## [YYYY-MM-DD] [Source Name] — [Brief title]
**URL:** [direct link to primary source — not a search results page]
**Source family:** [which rotation day]
**Current base-rates.md claim:** "[quote the exact sentence this finding would update or replace]"
**New finding:** [what the source actually says — one sentence, no paraphrase that changes numerical meaning]
**Impact:** UPDATE existing claim / ADD new claim / CONTRADICTS cited source / IMPROVES attribution
**Confidence:** High / Medium / Low — [one reason]
**Status:** STAGED

Maximum 3 findings per SCOUT run.

If 0 findings survive filtering:

## [YYYY-MM-DD] NO NEW FINDINGS
Sources searched: [list]

Step 4 — Report

RESEARCH SCOUT — [date]
Source family searched: [which rotation]
Searches run: [N]
Findings staged: [N]
Discarded: [N] — [brief reason if any]

Staged:
[list titles]

Run 'promote staged findings' to review queue.

PROMOTE Mode

Read research/staged-findings.md. For each entry with Status: STAGED:

1. Read the current relevant section of references/base-rates.md
2. Present the staged finding and the current text side by side
3. State a recommendation: promote, hold, or discard — with one-sentence rationale
4. Wait for explicit user decision per finding
5. On promote: edit references/base-rates.md with the new or updated claim. Update entry status to PROMOTED — [date]
6. On hold: leave status as STAGED
7. On discard: update status to DISCARDED — [reason]

Do not edit references/base-rates.md without explicit user confirmation.

Constraints

• Never write directly to references/base-rates.md without PROMOTE mode and explicit confirmation
• Never stage a finding without a direct URL to the primary source
• Never paraphrase in a way that changes a numerical claim
• Maximum 3 staged findings per SCOUT run; no cap on PROMOTE sessions
• Pattern files (references/startup-failures.md, software-failure-patterns.md, launch-risks.md) are out of scope — route any findings about those to a separate editorial session