ai-agents-research-methodology

# AI Agents Research Methodology <!-- vendor-portability: contributor-facing knowledge pack for the rjmurillo/ai-agents repo itself; intentionally references upstream paths (.agents/, .claude/, scripts/, build/) because its audience is repo contributors, not plugin consumers (issue #2050) --> This repo runs on verification-based governance. SESSION-PROTOCOL.md states it verbatim: "Labels like 'MANDATORY' or 'NON-NEGOTIABLE' are insufficient. Each requirement MUST have a verification mechanism." (.agents/SESSION-PROTOCOL.md:36-37). The same standard applies to ideas. An idea is not accepted because it sounds right, because a model agreed with it, or because a retro asserted it. It is accepted when it survives the lifecycle below and leaves an inspectable artifact at every stage. This skill is the discipline. For the specific probe recipes, use `ai-agents-empirical-probe-toolkit`. For the three open research programs, use `ai-agents-research-frontier`. For the archive of past settled results, use `ai-agents-failure-archaeology`. ## Triggers - `how do I prove this idea` - `run the idea lifecycle` - `what is the evidence bar` - `turn this hunch into a result` ## The Evidence Bar A result is accepted here when ONE mechanism explains ALL observations, including the negative ones, and the explanation survives adversarial refutation. Partial explanations that cover only the confirming observations are hypotheses, not results. The cautionary tale is PR #1989. Mitigation M1 was ...