research-design-helper

A structured design brief is generated by navigating a five-segment Socratic workflow that sharpens the research question, expected mechanism, identifiability, validation, and risk without inventing the core model details.

The Socratic method for a research design brief applies a five-segment questioning process covering research question sharpening, expected mechanism, identifiability, validation, and risk to formalize your study design.

You can integrate existing topic dossiers into your design brief generation by providing optional inputs like `.research/topic_dossier.gaps.yml` or free-text responses to inform the Socratic process.

To preserve provenance for research design iterations, the generated `.research/design_brief.md` artifact includes frontmatter and section outputs that enable full traceability for reviews.

The research design workflow supports a placeholder-tracking mechanism within the `.research/design_brief.md` file to manage incomplete sections during the iterative design process.

A finalized research question is not required before starting the design brief workflow; the Socratic process is designed to sharpen an initial topic after it has been chosen.