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vt-c-research-implement

Implement approved research proposals from Obsidian. Reads proposals with [x] Implement checked and executes them.

Plugin: core-standards
Category: Research
Command: /vt-c-research-implement

Research Implementation

Automatically implement approved research proposals from Obsidian.

Workflow Position

/vt-c-research-ingest  →  Review in Obsidian  →  Check [x] Implement  →  /vt-c-research-implement
                                                                     ▲ THIS COMMAND

Invocation

/vt-c-research-implement              # Implement all checked proposals
/vt-c-research-implement --dry-run    # Preview what would be implemented
/vt-c-research-implement --yes        # Skip confirmation prompts
/vt-c-research-implement --file DATE  # Only process specific date's proposals

Configuration

proposals_folder: "TOOLKIT_ROOT/intake/pending/from-research"
toolkit_root: "TOOLKIT_ROOT/plugins/core-standards"
processed_folder: "TOOLKIT_ROOT/intake/processed"
daily_notes_folder: "~/Documents/Obsidian Vault/Daily notes"

Execution Instructions

Step 1: Scan Proposals

  1. List all files in intake/pending/from-research/
  2. Read each proposals file (YYYY-MM-DD-proposals.md)
  3. Parse markdown to find individual proposals

Step 2: Find Approved Proposals

For each proposal, check the Action line: 

**Action**: [ ] Review [x] Implement [ ] Skip [ ] Completed

A proposal is actionable if: - [x] Implement is checked AND - [x] Completed is NOT checked

Step 3: Parse Implementation Details

Extract the YAML block from each approved proposal:

type: new-skill
name: vt-c-research-implement
location: skills/component-name/SKILL.md
source_reference: path/to/source
dependencies:
  - modify: skills/other-skill/SKILL.md

Validate required fields: - type (required): new-skill, modify-skill, new-agent, new-command, documentation - name (required): Component name - location (required for new-*): Target file path - source_reference (optional): Path to source material for context

Step 4: Dry Run Check

If --dry-run flag is set: 

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Research Implementation - DRY RUN
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Found N proposals with [x] Implement:

1. [YYYY-MM-DD] Proposal: [Title]
   Type: new-skill
   Location: skills/[name]/SKILL.md
   Dependencies: 1 file to modify

2. [YYYY-MM-DD] Proposal: [Title]
   Type: modify-agent
   Location: agents/[category]/[name].md

No changes made (dry run).
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Then exit without making changes.

Step 5: Execute Implementation

For each approved proposal, based on type:

new-skill

1. Create skill directory: skills/[name]/
2. Read source_reference for context (if provided)
3. Generate SKILL.md based on:
   - Finding and Suggestion from proposal
   - Patterns from similar existing skills
   - Source material content
4. Create SKILL.md with proper frontmatter
5. Create symlink: ln -sf ../plugins/.../skills/[name] ~/.claude/skills/[name]

modify-skill

1. Read existing skill at location
2. Read source_reference for context
3. Apply modifications based on Suggestion
4. Update SKILL.md preserving structure

new-agent

1. Determine category from location (security, design, research, etc.)
2. Read source_reference for context
3. Generate agent definition based on:
   - Finding and Suggestion
   - Similar existing agents in category
4. Create agent markdown file

modify-agent

1. Read existing agent at location
2. Apply modifications based on Suggestion
3. Update agent file preserving structure

new-command

1. Create command file: commands/[name].md
2. Generate command definition with:
   - Frontmatter (name, description, allowed-tools)
   - Usage examples
   - Reference to skill if applicable

documentation

1. Identify target documentation file
2. Read existing content
3. Apply additions/modifications
4. Update file preserving structure

Step 6: Confirmation (Unless --yes)

Before each implementation (unless --yes flag): 

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Implementing: [Proposal Title]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Type: new-skill
Name: [component-name]
Location: skills/[name]/SKILL.md

Will create:
  + skills/[name]/SKILL.md
  + ~/.claude/skills/[name] (symlink)

Will modify:
  ~ skills/other-skill/SKILL.md (dependency)

Proceed? [y/N]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Step 7: Mark Completed

After successful implementation:

  1. Update the proposal in the intake file: 

    **Action**: [ ] Review [x] Implement [ ] Skip [x] Completed

**Implementation Note** (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM):
Implemented by /vt-c-research-implement
- Created: skills/[name]/SKILL.md
- Symlink: ~/.claude/skills/[name]

  2. Move the proposals file to the processed archive: 

    mv intake/pending/from-research/YYYY-MM-DD-proposals.md intake/processed/YYYY-MM-DD-proposals.md
    If only some proposals in the file were implemented, keep the file in pending/ and only update the Action lines for completed proposals.

  3. Add summary to daily note (optional, if daily note exists): 

    ### Research Implementation
Implemented N proposals from toolkit intake
- [Proposal 1 title]
- [Proposal 2 title]

Step 8: Update Plugin Counts

After all implementations: 1. Count new skills/commands/agents added 2. Update plugin.json if counts changed 3. Update README.md counts if changed

Step 9: Display Summary

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Research Implementation Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Implemented: N proposals

New Components:
• Skills: X
• Agents: Y
• Commands: Z

Modified:
• Skills: A
• Documentation: B

Plugin counts updated:
• Skills: 49 → 52
• Commands: 39 → 40

Daily note updated with implementation summary.
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Implementation Templates

New Skill Template

---
name: vt-c-research-implement
description: [Description from proposal]
argument-hint: "[optional args]"
---

# [Skill Title]

[Description paragraph based on Finding and Suggestion]

## Invocation

```bash
/[skill-name]

Execution Instructions

Step 1: [First Step]

[Instructions based on source material and proposal]

Step 2: [Next Step]

[Continue with implementation steps]

Notes

Generated by /vt-c-research-implement from proposal: - Date: YYYY-MM-DD - Source: [source_reference] 

### New Agent Template

```markdown
# [Agent Name]

[Description based on Finding]

## Role

[Agent's specific role and responsibilities]

## Capabilities

- [Capability 1]
- [Capability 2]

## Workflow

1. [Step 1]
2. [Step 2]

## Notes

Generated by /vt-c-research-implement from proposal:
- Date: YYYY-MM-DD
- Source: [source_reference]

New Command Template

---
name: vt-c-research-implement
description: [Description from proposal]
---

# /[command-name]

[Description]

## Usage

```bash
/[command-name]              # Basic usage
/[command-name] --option     # With option

What It Does

  1. [Action 1]
  2. [Action 2]

Execution

Invoke the [skill-name] skill: → Load skill from skills/[skill-name]/SKILL.md 

## Error Handling

### Missing Implementation Details
⚠ Proposal "[Title]" is missing Implementation Details block. Cannot auto-implement. Please add:

Implementation Details: 

type: [type]
name: [name]
location: [path]

Skipping this proposal. 

### Invalid Type
⚠ Proposal "[Title]" has invalid type: "[type]" Valid types: new-skill, modify-skill, new-agent, modify-agent, new-command, documentation

Skipping this proposal. 

### Missing Source Reference
ℹ Proposal "[Title]" has no source_reference. Implementation will be based on Finding and Suggestion only.

Proceed? [y/N] 

## Safety Measures

1. **Backup**: Before modifying any file, create backup at `~/.claude/vt-c-research-implement-backups/YYYY-MM-DD/`
2. **Preview**: Always support `--dry-run` for preview
3. **Confirmation**: Require explicit confirmation unless `--yes`
4. **Rollback info**: Log all changes for potential manual rollback

## Integration with Toolkit Intake

This skill is designed to work with the centralized intake system:

1. `/vt-c-research-ingest` creates proposals in `intake/pending/from-research/`
2. User reviews proposals and checks `[x] Implement`
3. `/vt-c-research-implement` reads and executes approved proposals
4. Completed proposals are moved to `intake/processed/`

**Related skills:**
- `/vt-c-toolkit-review` -- processes project feedback and RCA imports from `intake/pending/from-projects/` and `intake/pending/from-rca/`
- `/vt-c-research-ingest` -- generates the proposals that this skill implements

---

## Review Findings Analysis Mode

When invoked with `--from-reviews`, this skill analyzes cross-project review data to propose agent prompt improvements.

### Invocation

```bash
/vt-c-research-implement --from-reviews              # Analyze and generate proposals
/vt-c-research-implement --from-reviews --dry-run    # Preview proposals only

Execution (Review Analysis Mode)

Step R1: Load Cross-Project Data

  1. Read plugins/core-standards/docs/cross-project-review-patterns.md
  2. Scan for per-project docs/review-history.md files in known project paths
  3. Merge data into a unified view of recurring findings

Step R2: Identify Agent Improvement Opportunities

For each pattern with frequency >= 3:

  1. Identify which agent should catch this pattern type
  2. Read the agent's current prompt (from plugins/core-standards/agents/review/[agent].md)
  3. Check if the pattern is already covered in the agent's instructions
  4. If NOT covered: generate a proposal to update the agent prompt

Step R3: Generate Proposals

Create proposals in the standard intake format:

### Proposal: Update [agent-name] to detect [pattern]

**Finding**: Review retrospectives show [pattern] occurring [N] times across [M] projects, but [agent] does not currently check for it.

**Suggestion**: Add a check for [pattern] to the agent's review instructions.

**Implementation Details**:
```yaml
type: modify-agent
name: vt-c-research-implement
location: agents/review/[agent-name].md
source_reference: plugins/core-standards/docs/cross-project-review-patterns.md

Action: [ ] Review [x] Implement [ ] Skip [ ] Completed ```

Write proposals to intake/pending/from-reviews/YYYY-MM-DD-review-analysis.md.

Step R4: Update Tracker

After generating proposals, update cross-project-review-patterns.md: - Mark patterns as "Proposal generated" in the Toolkit Action column - Log the proposal date and file in the Improvement Log table