# Autonomous Investigation

The protocol behind every investigation skill.

- Repository: https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills (7825 stars)
- Category: Writing
- License: see repository
- Last updated: 2026-10-16
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill autonomous-investigation -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill autonomous-investigation -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill autonomous-investigation -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill autonomous-investigation -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills`

## Description

The protocol behind every investigation skill. Use when AI research must proceed without you: search-plan gate, Fact/Inference/Assumption labels, confidence stacking, diffable outputs.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Autonomous Investigation Protocol

## Purpose

Provide the canonical contract for **investigation skills**, research the AI performs in the world (web
search, published data, public filings) while you review the evidence instead of feeding it context.
Where `workshop-facilitation` governs skills that ask you questions one at a time, this protocol governs
skills that *proceed without you*: they budget their questions, show their plan, label every claim, and
produce output stable enough to diff against last quarter's run. That last property is the payoff, an
investigation honoring this contract can run as an agent task, in a loop, or on a schedule.

## Input

**Nothing required**, this skill defines the protocol other investigation skills follow.
**Also useful when invoked standalone:** the target of the investigation and, above all, **the decision
the research should support**. Research without a decision is a hobby; every investigation skill asks
for the decision because it determines what "just enough" means.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself, text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an
appended `ARGUMENTS:` line, counts as answers already given. Use it, credit it against the question
budget, and don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** The protocol's whole design is to proceed on best-available
evidence with labeled assumptions when nobody answers questions. When another skill references this
protocol, that skill's Input section governs what to provide.

**Example invocation:** `Run an autonomous investigation on [TARGET]'s move into workflow automation, this supports our Q3 roadmap bet on the same space.`

## Key Concepts

### Two protocols, two jobs

The rest: https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills/blob/HEAD/skills/autonomous-investigation/SKILL.md