research-os
research-os turns an open-ended research question into a research-pack: a structured local repo where Claude, Cowork, or a swarm can work for hours without hallucinating, drifting, or flattening the investigation.
It is not a report generator. It is the operating environment for grounded research.
The fundamental problem
Section titled “The fundamental problem”Most “deep research” tools collapse to search → summarize → pretty report. The model never has to justify a claim to a source. The output sounds confident but can’t be audited.
research-os refuses to work this way. Every claim must trace to a literal excerpt from a fetched source. Every section must pass a gate before synthesis runs. Contradictions are mapped, not smoothed over. The final freeze writes a sha256-fingerprinted receipt of every artifact.
The load-bearing law
Section titled “The load-bearing law”No synthesis before source truth.
This one law drives everything else. The 16 laws in the Laws page are enforcement consequences of this single principle.
The research-pack
Section titled “The research-pack”When you run research-os init, you get a research-pack — a directory with:
research.yaml— pack config: topic, decision, audience, gate thresholds, source waiver policy, section listsections/<id>/— per-section workspaces: brief, sources, claims, contradictions, gatesevidence/— fetch receipts, source cards, excerpt ledgerssynthesis/— cross-section map, decision brief, working report, final reportaudits/— gate results, review findings, pack rolluphandoffs/— cowork handoff contract and master promptaudits/freeze-receipt.json— proof the chain held end-to-end
What makes it different
Section titled “What makes it different”| Feature | research-os |
|---|---|
| Source grounding | Every claim cites a literal excerpt ID from the excerpt ledger — model cannot author evidence text |
| Contradiction tracking | Detected, mapped, resolution-ledgered — never flattened |
| Gate enforcement | Section must be synthesis_eligible before downstream synthesis runs |
| Freeze integrity | sha256 fingerprint of every canonical artifact — unfinished research cannot masquerade as done |
| Dogfood proof | v0.1 was gated through its own pack before shipping |