research-ideation

# Research Ideation

Supports the complete workflow for the research project initiation phase, from vague idea to a traceable research contract: research question, hypothesis, evidence needs, falsification criteria, method selection, and next action.

## Core Features

### 1. Idea Brainstorming (5W1H Framework)

Systematically brainstorm research ideas using the 5W1H framework:
- **What**: What problem or phenomenon to study
- **Why**: Why this problem is important
- **Who**: Target audience and stakeholders
- **When**: Time scope and context of the research
- **Where**: Application scenarios and domains
- **How**: Preliminary research methodology ideas

**Integration with superpowers:brainstorming**: Can invoke the superpowers:brainstorming skill for interactive brainstorming to help rapidly generate and evaluate research ideas.

### 2. Literature Review

Systematically search, analyze, and synthesize related literature:
- Build effective search keywords
- Search via WebSearch across academic databases (arXiv, Google Scholar, etc.)
- Screen and evaluate paper quality
- Identify research trends and gaps
- Generate structured literature reviews from evidence-labeled sources
- **Zotero Integration**: Papers are automatically added to Zotero via DOI, organized into topic-based collections, and open-access PDFs are auto-attached for full-text reading

### 3. Gap Analysis

Systematically identify and evaluate research gaps:
- **Literature gaps**: Identify topics or questions not yet sufficiently studied
- **Methodological gaps**: Discover limitations and improvement opportunities in existing methods
- **Application gaps**: Identify opportunities for theory-to-practice transfer
- **Interdisciplinary gaps**: Discover research opportunities at the intersection of different fields
- **Temporal gaps**: Identify new research needs arising from changes over time

**Analysis Dimensions:**
- Coverage of research topics
- Comparison of strengths and weaknesses of existing methods
- Completeness of experimental setups
- Availability of datasets and benchmarks
- Gap between theory and practice

### 4. Research Question Definition

Formulate specific research questions based on literature analysis:
- Identify research gaps and opportunities
- Apply SMART principles to formulate questions
- Evaluate importance, novelty, and feasibility
- Define research objectives and expected contributions
- Write a `Research Question Card` that states the hypothesis, current evidence, missing evidence, support criteria, falsification criteria, and minimal next action
- Apply the proposal readiness gate before turning a card into a polished proposal

### 5. Method Selection

Select appropriate research methods:
- Analyze strengths and weaknesses of existing methods
- Evaluate method applicability
- Identify required technologies and resources
- Consider method feasibility

### 6. Research Planning

Develop detailed research plans:
- Plan research timeline
- Define milestones and deliverables
- Identify potential risks
- Assess resource requirements

## When to Use

### Scenarios for This Skill

Use the research-ideation skill in the following situations:

1. **Starting a new research project** - Have research interests but no clear research question yet
2. **Literature review** - Need to systematically understand a research field
3. **Research question formulation** - Need to transform vague ideas into specific research questions
4. **Method selection** - Need to choose appropriate research methods and technical approaches
5. **Research planning** - Need to plan research timeline and resources

### Typical Workflow

```
Research interest → Idea brainstorming (5W1H) → Research Question Card → Evidence Records → Gap analysis → Proposal readiness gate → Select method or experiment → Decision
```

**Conditional Outputs:**
- `research-question-card.md` - Always generate this for research startup or intake.
- `literature-review.md` - Generate only when evidence-labeled sources are sufficient for synthesis.
- `research-proposal.md` - Generate only when a selected Research Question Card passes the evidence gate.
- `references.bib` - Generate only when reliable citation metadata exists.
- Zotero collection with organized papers and PDFs - Create only when Zotero is configured, writable, and the user is not asking for dry-run/audit mode.

## Integration with Other Systems

### Complete Research Workflow

```
research-ideation (Research initiation)
    ↓
Experiment execution (completed by user)
    ↓
results-analysis (Results analysis)
    ↓
ml-paper-writing (Paper writing)
```

### Data Flow

- **Research Question Card** → Guides literature scope, experiment design, and method selection
- **Evidence Records** → Carry source type, claim strength, and allowed/forbidden wording into literature synthesis, project knowledge, and later claim audit
- **Proposal Readiness Gate** → Prevents abstract-only or webpage-placeholder evidence from becoming a polished proposal
- **Experimental results** → results-analysis for statistical analysis and claim candidates
- **Analysis results** → results-report and ml-paper-writing with explicit evidence limits

### Zotero Integration

Through the Zotero MCP server, the research-ideation workflow automates literature management:

- **Paper Discovery**: WebSearch finds relevant papers across academic databases
- **Auto-Import**: Extract DOI / arXiv ID / landing-page URLs from search results, then use `zotero_add_items_by_identifier` to prefer paper/preprint imports before any webpage fallback
- **Collection Organization**: `zotero_create_collection` creates topic-based collections with standard sub-collections (Core Papers, Methods, Applications, Baselines, To-Read)
- **PDF Attachment**: `zotero_add_items_by_identifier(..., attach_pdf=true)` runs a PDF cascade (landing-page PDF hints → direct PDF → Unpaywall), and `zotero_find_and_attach_pdfs` can be used as a follow-up sweep for remaining items
- **Ful