Research that ends in a document
A real question, a few minutes of sourced work, and a document at the end of it. The recipe is one ask, written so the run chases the right questions, and one steering moment: “Design this” on the finished report. The machinery itself is covered on the deep research page.
The ask
Research whether it's worth switching my bakery to compostable packaging — I'm deciding what to order when our supplier contract ends in the spring. I care about cost per order, whether customers actually notice, and any rules I'd have to meet. For context, put your real numbers here: roughly what you spend on packaging now, and how many orders you do in a typical week.
Every clause is doing work. The topic alone would get you a tour of the subject; I'm deciding aims the research at what would change your mind instead. The two or three things you care about become the sub-questions of the plan — name different ones and you get a different report. And your own numbers let the findings be weighed against your situation rather than an average one.
What comes back
First, not a report but the work itself: a step timeline in the thread shows the run as it happens — the searches, the pages read, the data it mined. There is no plan to approve first, so the ask is your steering moment: the two or three things you named become the sub-questions, and naming different ones gets a different report. Leave out the one you already know the answer to, and sharpen the vague one, before you send.
The report that lands is sectioned, carries numbered citations pointing at the sources it actually read, and says so where it found nothing.
Under the finished report sits “Design this”. It lays the same report out as a designed document — cover, headings, your brand — without rewriting a word, and it tells you how many citations were kept. Pictures are optional, off by default, and the option states its cost in plain words. The designed document lives in the panel like decks and documents do.
Make it yours
- Swap the facts. The shape survives any decision — renewing a lease, picking a market, choosing equipment. Keep I'm deciding and your two or three axes, and always paste your real numbers where the example pastes the bakery's.
- Settle the words before designing. “Design this” keeps the text exactly as it stands, so ask for changes in the thread first — “tighten this to two pages for my co-founder” — and design the version you settled on.
- Present it instead. If the room will see it rather than read it, ask for a deck built from the report — how decks are made.