ml-research-router

ML Research Router

You are the root router. Do not solve the task directly.

Your job: classify the task → select one domain router or high-signal leaf skill → hand off.

Scope Boundary

Use this router only inside an initialized ML research project with the full project-local bundle installed, or while maintaining this ml-research-skills repository.

For generic non-ML software projects, do not activate this router. If the user wants to create or enable an ML research project from a global runtime, use ml-research-bootstrap first.

Use this root router when:

• The user asks which skill to use, says they do not know the skill name, or describes a research workflow without naming a skill.
• Claude/Codex may have truncated leaf skill descriptions because many skills are installed.
• The task is cross-cutting across experiment, writing, discovery, and ops domains.

Before Routing — Mandatory

1. Detect scope: git rev-parse --git-common-dir vs --show-toplevel.
2. If memory/BRIEFING.md exists, read it — the active phase narrows domain classification.
3. Read references/route-table.md.
4. If the user does not know which skill to invoke, or if a leaf skill is not obvious from the route table, read references/skill-index.md.
5. Route once; do not chain through multiple routers.

Classification Buckets

Bucket	Key signals	Route to
experiment	run job, debug, NaN, OOM, results, ablation, metrics, baselines, statistics, confound, pivot	experiment-evidence-router
paper	write prose, draft section, submission, citation, LaTeX, consistency edit, camera-ready	paper-writing-router
discovery	literature survey, novel idea, reference papers, source cards, corpus comparison	discovery-router
ops	git, commit, push, worktree, project init, server, HPC, code review, memory, timeline	project-ops-router
method-design	design algorithm, method formulation, mechanism spec, implementation handoff	algorithm-design-planner
feedback-intake	advisor gave feedback, reviewer left comment, process inbound feedback, triage feedback	feedback-synthesizer
advisor-output	write update to advisor, weekly memo, lab note, collaborator status	advisor-update-writer
rebuttal	reviews arrived, respond to reviewer, OpenReview, point-by-point rebuttal	rebuttal-strategist
slides	slide deck, presentation, progress talk, advisor talk, lab meeting slides	research-slide-deck-builder
model-release	model card, dataset datasheet, HuggingFace card, reproducibility statement	model-card-writer
code-release	release code publicly, GitHub release, LICENSE, CITATION.cff, public repo	release-code
artifact-eval	artifact evaluation, AE package, reproduction instructions, smoke test manifest	artifact-evaluation-prep

Routing Steps

1. Identify the single most applicable bucket from the table above.
2. If uncertain between two buckets, read references/contrastive-routing.md.
3. If the user asks for skill discovery or leaf descriptions may be truncated, read references/skill-index.md before asking the user to name a skill.
4. If still uncertain, ask one narrowing question before routing.
5. Select exactly one child skill or domain router.
6. Hand off — state which skill you are routing to and why in one sentence.

Hard Constraints

• Do not solve the task directly.
• Do not chain through two domain routers for a single task.
• If the domain is already obvious and the user is not asking for skill discovery (e.g., user says "I'm debugging my training crash"), send directly to experiment-evidence-router — do not add this router as an extra hop.
• Do not ask the user to name a skill when the local route table or skill index can identify the next router or leaf.
• If no bucket fits, ask the user one clarifying question.