phd-guardrail

What problem does it solve?

It prevents PhD researchers from outsourcing core intellectual work—like literature synthesis, gap-finding, and thesis writing—to a chatbot, which can cause cognitive debt and atrophy of researcher skills.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Task triage for research-adjacent requests: Classifies requests as GREEN (safe retrieval/formatting), RED (PhD thinking), or AMBER (split work).
• Socratic scaffolding instead of drafting: Refuses RED tasks while providing prompts and structured reading/thinking protocols so you do the synthesis.
• Partial-synthesis risk control: Guides safer patterns to avoid you adopting AI-constructed understanding as your own without actually doing the reading.

Quick Start

Use this skill whenever you ask an AI to help with your thesis, research question, literature review, gap analysis, or novelty assessment so it can decide what to delegate versus scaffold.