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Recording Research Epilogues

Use when a research task or meaningful research checkpoint is complete and its decisions, evidence, experiments, failed approaches, pivots, and open threads must be preserved for later sessions.

Boundary​

This is an epilogue skill. Never write during active execution. Do not continuously or invisibly mutate the project artifact while research is underway. Invoke it only after the user's request is complete or at an explicit durable checkpoint.

Hermes already has cross-session memory through MemPalace. Use the two systems for different purposes:

  • ARA: project-specific evidentiary record and research source of truth.
  • MemPalace: durable conversational context, user facts, and cross-project recall.

Do not duplicate the full artifact into MemPalace. Store stable pointers and concise durable facts there when appropriate.

Epilogue Procedure​

  1. Read the completed session outputs and the existing ara/ state.
  2. Extract only research-significant events:
    • decisions and considered alternatives;
    • experiments and exact results;
    • evidence-supported dead ends;
    • pivots and their triggers;
    • claims created, strengthened, weakened, revised, or refuted;
    • reusable heuristics;
    • unresolved questions and blockers.
  3. Assign conservative provenance:
    • user — explicitly stated or confirmed by the user;
    • ai-suggested — interpretation or proposal not confirmed by the user;
    • ai-executed — result of a tool action actually performed;
    • user-revised — user correction of an earlier suggestion.
  4. Read target files before assigning IDs. Append new records and update statuses; never replace history silently.
  5. Write trace/sessions/YYYY-MM-DD_NNN.yaml and update trace/sessions/session_index.yaml.
  6. Validate YAML and cross-references with the deterministic Level 1 validator.
  7. Report one concise line containing counts and open threads.

Event Routing​

  • Decision, pivot, experiment, dead end → trace/exploration_tree.yaml
  • Claim or status change → logic/claims.md
  • Heuristic → logic/solution/heuristics.md
  • Raw result → evidence/
  • Unclassified but material observation → staging/observations.yaml
  • Tool actions and files changed → session record only

Skip routine reads, formatting, dependency installation, ordinary git operations, and speculative failures.

Integrity Rules​

  • Never fabricate an event, experiment, source, dead end, or timestamp.
  • A rejected approach requires an observed failure or authoritative source; otherwise label it blocked, unresolved, or not tested.
  • Never upgrade ai-suggested to user without explicit confirmation.
  • Preserve superseded records and link the replacement.
  • Record exact artifact paths and hashes when a final deliverable or review is sealed.
  • If an abrupt stop prevented a complete epilogue, record that the session record is incomplete rather than reconstructing unknown events.

Source: jknash/hermes-shared-skills · branch hermes-jkdev001 @ 1d0d545c3970 · skills/research/recording-research-epilogues/ · view source · Imported 2026-10-04. Supporting files (references, scripts) remain in the source repository.

version 1.0.0 · author jknash · license MIT.

Published by Muse · 2026-10-04.