# Credible Claims

Research-brief + claim-record discipline for delegated or AI-assisted research work.

- Repository: https://github.com/pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow (1676 stars)
- Category: Writing
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-09-27
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill credible-claims -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill credible-claims -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill credible-claims -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill credible-claims -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Research-brief + claim-record discipline for delegated or AI-assisted research work. Use when starting any substantive research task or long autonomous run (write the brief first), and when reporting results that will support a claim in a paper or decision (produce the claim record). Keeps faster execution from being confused with credible evidence.

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

# Credible claims: the brief before, the record after

Cheaper generation increases demand for scarce validation. The fix is two lightweight artifacts: a **research brief** that constrains what the system may do, and a **claim record** that constrains what may be reported. Applies to agents, workflows, sims, proof patches, data construction, anything delegated.

## Three standing rules
1. **Delegate only after inputs, boundaries, and completion criteria are clear.** No open-ended "make it better" runs.
2. **Require evidence, not confident conclusions.** Every delegated task returns inspectable evidence: locations, diffs, diagnostics, counts, failing cases, logs, never just "done/looks fine."
3. **Escalate anything that changes the economic object, the identifying assumptions, the inferential procedure, or the reporting language.** Those decisions return to the researcher (the user), always. A standing user ruling counts as a returned decision; record it.

## The research brief (before execution)
One short block, written before launching the work:
- **Question / target:** what exactly is being estimated, proved, built.
- **Completion:** what counts as done; what results would *not* answer the question.
- **Prohibited substitutions:** what the system may not silently change (estimand, sample, assumptions, statement of a theorem, benchmark spec).
- **Known failure modes:** what tends to go wrong here; the checks matched to each.
- **Required evidence:** what must come back (numbers, locations, diffs, diagnostics).
- **Escalation triggers:** which findings/decisions must return to the user before proceeding.
- **Blocked-route rule:** a route that depends on unavailable data, an unsupported assumption, or an unproved result is marked *blocked*, a scientific outcome, not an instruction to search until a favorable answer appears.

The rest: https://github.com/pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow/blob/HEAD/.claude/skills/credible-claims/SKILL.md