[IMPORTANT] Use

TaskCreate

to break ALL work into small tasks BEFORE starting.

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Critical Thinking Mindset — Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: Never present guess as fact — cite sources for every claim, admit uncertainty freely, self-check output for errors, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence — certainty without evidence root of all hallucination.

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AI Mistake Prevention — Failure modes to avoid on every task:

• Check downstream references before deleting. Deleting components causes documentation and code staleness cascades. Map all referencing files before removal.
• Verify AI-generated content against actual code. AI hallucinates APIs, class names, and method signatures. Always grep to confirm existence before documenting or referencing.
• Trace full dependency chain after edits. Changing a definition misses downstream variables and consumers derived from it. Always trace the full chain.
• Trace ALL code paths when verifying correctness. Confirming code exists is not confirming it executes. Always trace early exits, error branches, and conditional skips — not just happy path.
• When debugging, ask "whose responsibility?" before fixing. Trace whether bug is in caller (wrong data) or callee (wrong handling). Fix at responsible layer — never patch symptom site.
• Assume existing values are intentional — ask WHY before changing. Before changing any constant, limit, flag, or pattern: read comments, check git blame, examine surrounding code.
• Verify ALL affected outputs, not just the first. Changes touching multiple stacks require verifying EVERY output. One green check is not all green checks.
• Holistic-first debugging — resist nearest-attention trap. When investigating any failure, list EVERY precondition first (config, env vars, DB names, endpoints, DI registrations, data preconditions), then verify each against evidence before forming any code-layer hypothesis.
• Surgical changes — apply the diff test. Bug fix: every changed line must trace directly to the bug. Don't restyle or improve adjacent code. Enhancement task: implement improvements AND announce them explicitly.
• Surface ambiguity before coding — don't pick silently. If request has multiple interpretations, present each with effort estimate and ask. Never assume all-records, file-based, or more complex path.

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Quick Summary

Goal: Synthesize evidence base into final structured report using enforced template.

Workflow:

1. Load evidence — Read evidence base from deep-research
2. Load template — Read enforced template from .claude/templates/
3. Synthesize — Write report following template structure
4. Citation check — Verify every claim has citation
5. Confidence summary — Aggregate scores, flag gaps

Key Rules:

• MUST ATTENTION use enforced template structure — all sections required
• Every factual claim inline-cited:

  [N]

  referencing source table
• Knowledge gaps section mandatory

Be skeptical. Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence percentages (Idea should be more than 80%).

Knowledge Synthesis

Step 1: Load Evidence

Read

.claude/tmp/_evidence-{slug}.md

and

.claude/tmp/_sources-{slug}.md

.

Inventory:

• Total findings with confidence scores
• Unresolved discrepancies
• Remaining gaps

Step 2: Load Template

Read the enforced template:

.claude/templates/research-report-template.md

Every section in the template MUST ATTENTION appear in the final report.

Step 3: Synthesize Report

Write to

docs/knowledge/research/{slug}.md

:

For each template section:

1. Map relevant findings from evidence base
2. Write content with inline citations

   [N]

3. Declare confidence per finding
4. Note cross-cutting patterns and contradictions in Analysis section

Step 4: Citation Audit

Verify:

• Every factual claim has at least one

  [N]

  citation
• Every source in the Sources table is referenced at least once
• No orphan citations (referencing non-existent source)

Step 5: Confidence Summary

Calculate overall report confidence:

• Average of all finding confidence scores
• Weight by finding importance
• Flag any <60% findings prominently

Output

Final report:

docs/knowledge/research/{descriptive-slug}.md

Clean up working files from

.claude/tmp/

after successful synthesis.

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Closing Reminders

• IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION break work into small todo tasks using

  TaskCreate

  BEFORE starting
• IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION search codebase for 3+ similar patterns before creating new code
• IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION cite

  file:line

  evidence for every claim (confidence >80% to act)
• IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION add a final review todo task to verify work quality <!-- SYNC:critical-thinking-mindset:reminder -->
• MUST ATTENTION apply critical thinking — every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: never present guess as fact. <!-- /SYNC:critical-thinking-mindset:reminder --> <!-- SYNC:ai-mistake-prevention:reminder -->
• MUST ATTENTION apply AI mistake prevention — holistic-first debugging, fix at responsible layer, surface ambiguity before coding, re-read files after compaction. <!-- /SYNC:ai-mistake-prevention:reminder -->