Autoresearch — Home Assistant Homelab

Honest fit check first: this is a Home Assistant config repo, not a benchmark-heavy code swarm. Most questions here are better answered by prototype, live HA traces, or architecture-review.

There is no docs/research/ surface and no research PRs. Git is operator-owned (operator-owned-git.md). This repo does not use git worktrees — experiments stay under .scratch/ in the main checkout.

When NOT to use this skill

Stop and route elsewhere when:

Situation	Use instead
"Does this automation/state model feel right?"	prototype in .scratch/
Package layout / coupling / design debt	architecture-review
Vague idea needs scoping	alignment
Broken YAML / automation	config-validate / automation-debug
No measurable metric or eval command	Do not invent one — hand off
Operator wants a durable research writeup under docs/research/	Decline — that path is not first-class here

When it is appropriate (rare)

Only when all of these hold:

1. Operator explicitly wants metric-driven experiments (or find-work surfaces this as a last-resort brief with a clear metric).
2. There is a real eval command that produces a numeric metric (script runtime, entity count query, validation exit code over a corpus, etc.).
3. Experiments stay under .scratch/ — never under packages/ as throwaway.

Slim workflow

- [ ] 1. Confirm fit (or refuse and route)
- [ ] 2. Agree hypothesis, in-scope scratch paths, eval, metric
- [ ] 3. Baseline under .scratch/<slug>/
- [ ] 4. Run a short experiment loop (keep notes in .scratch; no commits)
- [ ] 5. Stop when proven / disproven / exhausted / operator interrupts
- [ ] 6. Hand off: findings + recommended next skill; operator decides what to promote

Contract (keep tiny)

Field	Required
Hypothesis	Yes — testable claim
In-scope paths	Yes — only under .scratch/<slug>/
Eval command	Yes — no embedded secrets
Metric name + direction	Yes — lower or higher
Constraints	Optional

Do not change the contract mid-run. If the hypothesis evolves, stop and start a new slug.

Rules

• No commits, pushes, or PRs (operator-owned-git.md).
• No edits to packages/ as experimental throwaways — copy ideas into scratch, measure, then promote via implement-change if warranted.
• Log experiments as plain markdown/JSON under .scratch/<slug>/ (gitignored).
• Cap the loop: prefer a handful of deliberate trials over an autonomous swarm.
• At the end, summarize findings for the operator. Do not open a docs PR.

Hand off

## Autoresearch handoff

**Hypothesis:** …
**Result:** proven | disproven | exhausted | interrupted
**Best metric:** … (baseline …)
**Scratch path:** `.scratch/<slug>/`
**Recommend next:** prototype | alignment | implement-change | drop

Related

prototype · architecture-review · alignment · .scratch/README.md