/cs:grill-research-ops — Research grill against the research-ops canon
Apply Matt Pocock's grill-with-docs discipline to this plan / problem:
$ARGUMENTS
Five rules (preserved from Matt Pocock, MIT)
- One question per turn. Never bundle.
- Recommend an answer with each question.
- Explore the workspace before asking — protocols, ledgers, market models, interview guides.
- Walk depth-first.
- Track dependencies — endpoint → power → feasibility; budget → burn → treatment; sizing → survey → segmentation; method → saturation → synthesis.
The Research-Ops decision tree (depth-first)
Branch 1 — Which lane?
- CLINICAL / RD_FINANCE / MARKET / PRODUCT
Branch 2 — The forcing question per lane
CLINICAL: "Is your primary endpoint a clinical outcome or a surrogate — and if surrogate, is it validated for this indication?" Recommended: clinical outcome unless the surrogate is on FDA's validated table. Canon: FDA Surrogate Endpoint Table; BEST glossary; ICH E9.
RD_FINANCE: "Is this spend in the research phase or the development phase, and can you evidence technical feasibility?" Recommended: research = expense; development = capitalize-candidate only with feasibility evidence, routed to a named finance owner. Canon: IAS 38; ASC 730.
MARKET: "Is your TAM top-down or bottoms-up — and have you computed it both ways to triangulate?" Recommended: both; reconcile the delta before quoting a number. Canon: Bessemer / a16z market-sizing; Fermi estimation.
PRODUCT: "Is this study generative (discover problems) or evaluative (test a solution)?" Recommended: name it first; the method follows. Canon: Rohrer's UX-research methods landscape (NN/g).
Branch 3 — Confidence & assumptions check
"What's your confidence level, and what are the three assumptions the answer rests on?" Recommended: state confidence (high/moderate/low) and surface the assumptions before any number.
Branch 4 — Named owner
"Who is the human owner who signs this output?" Recommended: a named clinician/biostatistician (clinical), a named finance controller (finance), a named decision-maker (market/product) — not "the team".
Branch 5 — Now invoke the sub-skill
Only after branches 1-4 are locked, invoke /cs:research-ops with the synthesized inquiry.
Output format per turn
Q[i]/[total]: [precise question]
Recommended: [answer + canon-cited rationale]
(Confirm, or override?)
Stop conditions
- All branches resolved → invoke
/cs:research-ops <synthesized> - User says "stop grilling, just run it" → invoke with whatever's resolved, flag unresolved branches in digest
- User abandons → no sub-skill, save partial grill to
research-ops-grill-{timestamp}.md
Distinct from
engineering/grill-me(Matt Pocock) — generic.engineering/grill-with-docs(Matt Pocock) — codebase + ADR-anchored for engineering. This is Research-Ops-domain grilling against the research canon./cs:research-ops— executes routing. This interrogates first.