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name: research description: Run structured research experiments for Sunaba creature evolution. Use for creating experiments, investigating problems, making code changes, running training, and tracking progress across physics, morphology, neural, chemistry, and integration work. allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Write, Edit, Bash(cargo run:), Bash(just:), Bash(time:), Bash(RUST_LOG=:), Bash(cargo test:), Bash(cargo build:*)

Research Experiments Skill

Systematic research for Sunaba creature evolution across all systems.

Research Areas

Area	What Changes	How to Test
Physics	Gravity, damping, friction, thrust, joints	Training runs, observe behavior
Morphology	Body generation, part sizes, joint limits	Training runs, visual inspection
Neural	Network architecture, sensors, inputs	Training runs, behavior analysis
Chemistry	Reactions, materials, world generation	Manual testing, emergent behavior
Integration	How systems work together	In-game testing with creatures

Commands

/research [<goal>]

Create new experiments or suggest experiments based on current progress.

Auto-detect mode:

• With <goal> argument: Create experiment from goal description
• Without arguments: Suggest 2-5 experiments based on PLAN.md and PROGRESS.md

What I'll do (create mode - with goal):

1. Parse the goal (often from PLAN.md or user request)
2. Determine research area and appropriate template
3. Generate descriptive experiment name
4. Create experiments/YYYY-MM-DD-<name>.md (not inside .claude/skills, at the top level!)
5. Add entry to experiments/PROGRESS.md

What I'll do (suggest mode - no arguments):

1. Read PLAN.md for current phase goals
2. Read experiments/PROGRESS.md for completed work
3. Analyze what hasn't been tried yet
4. Propose 2-5 experiments with:
   • Goal and hypothesis
   • Research area (physics/morphology/neural/etc.)
   • What we expect to learn
   • Estimated effort
5. Ask which ones to create

Examples:

/research                                              # Suggest mode
/research "creatures should move >100px consistently"  # Create mode
/research "investigate why creatures don't use their legs"
/research "test higher joint angular velocity"

/research status

Show overview of all experiments.

What I'll do:

1. Read experiments/PROGRESS.md
2. List experiments by status
3. Show iteration chains
4. Highlight current phase goals from PLAN.md

Templates

Choose based on experiment type:

Template	Use When
code-change.md	Modifying game systems (physics, chemistry, morphology, neural)
training-run.md	Running training to test changes or establish baseline
investigation.md	Understanding a problem before trying fixes
iteration.md	Building on previous experiment results

Workflow

Investigation Flow

1. /research "understand why X happens"
2. Read code, run tests, observe behavior
3. Document findings in experiment file
4. Propose fixes as new experiments

Code Change Flow

1. /research "try changing X to improve Y"
2. Make code changes
3. Run training or manual tests
4. Document results
5. Keep or revert changes

Training Flow

1. Make code changes (or use current state)
2. /research "establish baseline for X"
3. Run just train-quick or full training
4. Analyze results manually
5. Create iteration with /research

Reference

Training Commands

just train-quick              # Fast validation (~1 min), outputs to training_output/
time just train-quick         # With timing

# Custom scenario/parameters (still uses training_output/)
just train scenario="locomotion" generations="100" population="50"

Scenarios

locomotion, simple, foraging, survival, balanced, parcour

Key Files

Area	Key Files
Physics	creature.rs, physics.rs, morphology.rs
Morphology	morphology.rs, genome.rs
Neural	neural.rs, sensors.rs
Training	headless/training_env.rs, headless/scenario.rs
Fitness	headless/fitness.rs