Research

Structured, source-backed research output saved to Projects/Research/ as standalone files.

The Problem

AI research output tends toward unsourced text with inconsistent depth. Product comparisons collapse variants, conflicts get silently resolved, and gaps go unmentioned.

The Solution

A guidelines file in your vault that Jesse reads whenever research is requested, producing scoped, cited reports with actionability sections.

Vault Structure

Knowledge/
  Jesse-Guidelines/
    Research-Guidelines.md   # Research output standards and citation rules
Projects/
  Research/                  # Completed research output (standalone files)

Configuration

The template already includes research. JESSE.md has a pointer in the Rules section:

### Research

Follow [[Knowledge/Jesse-Guidelines/Research-Guidelines]] for all research tasks. Any inbox item or instruction
that asks to research, investigate, explain, or answer a substantive question produces a file
in `Projects/Research/`, not a conversational reply.

The Guidelines File

The template ships a full research methodology at template/Knowledge/Jesse-Guidelines/Research-Guidelines.md – too long to embed here, and canonical in the template rather than in this page. What it covers:

• Vault first – search the vault (QMD or grep) before any web search; previously extracted knowledge with citations counts as a source, with a freshness heuristic for when to re-search.
• Scope confirmation – confirm scope on ambiguous requests; in unattended runs (scheduled tasks, inbox processing), make the most reasonable interpretation, record it in the scope statement, and never stall.
• Writing quality – narrative flow, no filler, specific over general: numbers, dates, names.
• Critical thinking – question the premise, show reasoning, identify gaps, name fallacies.
• Source hierarchy – four tiers (primary > institutional > quality journalism > everything else with caveats), inline trustworthiness ratings, numbered citations.
• Web search mandate – training knowledge is never a citable source; every non-trivial fact traces to a retrieved, dated, linkable source (or a cited vault extraction).
• Multilingual sourcing – mandatory for non-English contexts; “sparse in English” means the search stopped too early.
• Structural hints by research type – technical, market/competitive, and domain research patterns.
• Devil’s advocate, three layers – steelman, best counterargument, nuanced resolution.
• Pre-delivery quality check – a self-review checklist (source monoculture, blurred epistemic lines, stale sources, missing “so what”, orphaned tangents).
• Report skeleton – scope statement, executive overview (scaled to length), body, devil’s advocate, summary, actionability (never skipped), one or more appendices for tangents, source list.
• Archive footer – every research file ends with the checkbox footer from [[Knowledge/Jesse-Guidelines/Archive-Footer-Guidelines]] so it can be processed from Obsidian.

Copy the file from the template and edit it for your needs; the version in your vault is the one Jesse follows.

How It Works

1. Drop a research request in Inbox/ or ask Jesse directly.
2. Jesse reads Knowledge/Jesse-Guidelines/Research-Guidelines.md, scopes the research, gathers sources, and writes a structured report.
3. Output lands in Projects/Research/ with a summary and actionability section.
4. Any inbox item or instruction that asks to research, investigate, explain, or answer a substantive question produces a file in Projects/Research/. The conversational summary is secondary to the written report.

Tips and Gotchas

Don’t collapse variants. If something comes in multiple configurations, show all of them.

Non-English sources matter. Especially for regulatory, standards, or international topics.

Gaps are findings. “No data exists” is valuable – say so explicitly.

The actionability section is never skipped. Even when the answer is “nothing to do yet.”

The guidelines file is yours to edit. Different citation style, depth, domain needs – change it directly.