Initial Feynman research agent scaffold

skills/research/experiment-design/SKILL.md

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+---
+name: experiment-design
+description: Use this when the task is to turn a vague research idea into a testable experiment, define metrics, choose baselines, or plan ablations.
+---
+
+# Experiment Design
+
+## When To Use
+
+Use this skill when the user has:
+- a hypothesis to test
+- a method to evaluate
+- an unclear benchmark plan
+- a need for baselines, ablations, or metrics
+
+## Procedure
+
+1. Restate the research question as a falsifiable claim.
+2. Define:
+   - independent variables
+   - dependent variables
+   - success metrics
+   - baselines
+   - constraints
+3. Search for prior work first with `alpha_search` so you do not reinvent an obviously flawed setup.
+4. Use `alpha_get_paper` and `alpha_ask_paper` on the strongest references.
+5. Prefer the smallest experiment that can meaningfully reduce uncertainty.
+6. List confounders and failure modes up front.
+7. If implementation is requested, create the scripts, configs, and logging plan.
+8. Write the plan to disk before running expensive work.
+
+## Pitfalls
+
+- Avoid experiments with no baseline.
+- Avoid metrics that do not connect to the claim.
+- Avoid ablations that change multiple variables at once.
+- Avoid broad plans that cannot be executed with the current environment.
+
+## Deliverable
+
+Produce:
+- hypothesis
+- setup
+- baselines
+- metrics
+- ablations
+- risks
+- next action