search-first

/search-first — Research Before You Code

Systematizes the "search for existing solutions before implementing" workflow.

Trigger

Use this skill when:

• Starting a new feature that likely has existing solutions
• Adding a dependency or integration
• The user asks "add X functionality" and you're about to write code
• Before creating a new utility, helper, or abstraction

Workflow

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  1. NEED ANALYSIS                           │
│     Define what functionality is needed      │
│     Identify language/framework constraints  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  2. PARALLEL SEARCH (researcher agent)      │
│     ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐  │
│     │  npm /   │ │  MCP /   │ │  GitHub / │  │
│     │  PyPI    │ │  Skills  │ │  Web      │  │
│     └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  3. EVALUATE                                │
│     Score candidates (functionality, maint, │
│     community, docs, license, deps)         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  4. DECIDE                                  │
│     ┌─────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌─────────┐  │
│     │  Adopt  │  │  Extend  │  │  Build   │  │
│     │ as-is   │  │  /Wrap   │  │  Custom  │  │
│     └─────────┘  └──────────┘  └─────────┘  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  5. IMPLEMENT                               │
│     Install package / Configure MCP /       │

### Decision Matrix
### How to Use
### Quick Mode (inline)
### Full Mode (agent)
### Search Shortcuts by Category
### Development Tooling
### AI/LLM Integration
### Data & APIs
### Content & Publishing
### Integration Points
### With planner agent