investigate-before-acting
Mandatory protocol that prevents AI agents from fabricating information. Forces best practice search before every action — coding, design, content, pricing, naming, architecture, everything. Every decision must have a citation (source name + URL + direct quote). Based on Anthropic official hallucination reduction techniques.
npx skills add majiayu000/claude-skill-registry --skill investigate-before-acting --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Investigate Before Acting ## Detection Check if SOUL.md contains the marker `<!-- investigate-before-acting: installed -->`. - If YES → skip setup. Protocol is already installed. - If NO → run first-time setup below, then the marker will be included via the patch. ## First-time Setup 1. Read `{baseDir}/references/reasoning.md` — understand WHY each rule exists 2. Read `{baseDir}/references/soul-patch.md` — append its contents to SOUL.md (create SOUL.md if it does not exist) 3. Read `{baseDir}/references/agents-patch.md` — append its contents to AGENTS.md (skip if AGENTS.md does not exist) 4. If a `.claude/CLAUDE.md` exists in the current project, read `{baseDir}/references/claude-patch.md` and append its contents 5. Confirm to the user that installation is complete ## Protocol (every action, no exceptions) ### Step 1: Search (MANDATORY) - Run at least 3 independent search queries - Search in English and the user's language - Not found → generalize the keyword (e.g. "TikTok slideshow" → "short form content" → "direct response copywriting") - Search adjacent fields ### Step 2: Cite (MANDATORY) - Every decision gets a 3-part citation: **Source name + URL + direct quote from the sour
- Detection
- First-time Setup
- Protocol (every action, no exceptions)
- Step 1: Search (MANDATORY)
- Step 2: Cite (MANDATORY)
- Step 3: Execute
- If Not Found
- Rules
What does the investigate-before-acting skill do?
Mandatory protocol that prevents AI agents from fabricating information. Forces best practice search before every action — coding, design, content, pricing, naming, architecture, everything. Every decision must have a citation (source name + URL + direct quote). Based on Anthropic official hallucination reduction techniques.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add majiayu000/claude-skill-registry --skill investigate-before-acting --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From majiayu000/claude-skill-registry, a repository with 534 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.