Researcher Rigor Gate

This skill is the main scientific quality gate for the automated research commander.

Four Required Checks

Alignment

• Does the active plan actually match the user’s current confirmed goal?
• Are outdated assumptions or rejected directions still leaking into the workflow?

Feasibility

• Are assignments compatible with the responsible worker roles?
• Are resources, compute, and time nodes realistic?
• Are dependencies satisfiable in the current state?

Rigor

• Are baselines, controls, metrics, and validation logic explicit enough to reproduce?
• Are conclusions proportional to the available evidence?

Completeness

• Are any mandatory stages or handoffs missing?
• Are there unaddressed blockers, contradictions, or risk items?

Anti-Regression Rule

Do not recommend broad early-stage restarts once the workflow has reached a later phase such as experiment design, implementation, execution, synthesis, or final reporting, unless:

• a specific blocking gap is identified;
• a narrower correction is not sufficient; and
• the change is surfaced to the user as a material workflow revision.

Prefer targeted supplementation over phrases like "go back to round 1 literature search."