decompose-research-goal

Purpose

Turn a research direction into an AND/OR goal DAG with testable leaves, dependencies, and feasibility annotations.

Input contract

required: [research_direction, constraints]
optional: [actor_profile, obstacle_report, timeline, north_star]
constraints: [goal wording, constraints, and source context must be explicit]

Execution protocol

Do not perform called SOP operations inline; each loaded SOP owns its contract and thresholds.

1. You MUST load skill formulate-top-goal to formalize the top goal and desired effect.
2. You MUST load skill decompose-and-or-goal to recursively construct AND/OR branches and executable leaves.
3. You MUST load skill validate-goal-tree to check leaf specificity, testability, coverage, and dependency consistency.
4. You MUST load skill assess-goal-feasibility to annotate feasibility and alternatives.
5. You MUST load skill map-dependencies to map the goal dependencies. You MUST load skill crystallize-north-star to compress the result into a North Star.

Deviation: Omit feasibility annotations when no actor, resource, or timeline constraints are supplied; mark the tree provisional rather than inventing constraints. Re-run only the affected branch after a decision changes its parent goal.

Output contract

produces: [goal_tree_dag, executable_leaves, dependency_map, feasibility_annotations, research_north_star]
delta_fields: [findings, hypothesis_updates, decisions, uncertainties, open_questions]

Thresholds and quality gates

• Every leaf must be testable or executable and trace to a parent goal.
• AND/OR semantics must be explicit; unresolved feasibility remains an uncertainty.
• Completion requires coverage of the declared top goal, not a fixed leaf count.

Failure and counterexamples

Reject trees with circular dependencies, vague leaves, or branches that cannot be tied to the declared direction. Do not treat a polished sentence as evidence that decomposition is complete.

Provenance map

• resolved: goal-decomposition
• resolved: north-star-crystallization-formulate-top-goal
• resolved: north-star-crystallization-and-or-decompose
• resolved: north-star-crystallization-validate-leaves
• resolved: north-star-crystallization-feasibility-check
• resolved: north-star-crystallization-ask-decomposition-validation

Preserved source criteria ledger

source	source line	kind	source criterion
none retained	-	-	No source numeric/textual criterion retained after normalization.

Context checkpoint / Delta notes

Append the goal DAG, leaf validation, feasibility annotations, dependency changes, and unresolved validation questions.