
Scientific Problem Selection
Choose which scientific or technical problem to pursue before investing weeks in experiments or implementation.
Overview
Scientific Problem Selection is an agent skill for the Idea phase that helps a solo builder narrow and justify which scientific or technical problem to work on before deeper validation or build.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins --skill scientific-problem-selectionWhat is this skill?
- Knowledge-work plugin skill aimed at rigorous problem framing (name-level; body not in catalog excerpt)
- Fits early R&D and agent-assisted literature or lab planning workflows
- Apache-2.0 licensed package from Anthropics knowledge-work-plugins collection
- Use before deep implementation when multiple competing research directions exist
- Pairs with broader knowledge-work agent stacks rather than one-shot codegen
Adoption & trust: 1.2k installs on skills.sh; 19.6k GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You have several plausible research or product hypotheses and no disciplined way to decide which one is worth your limited time and compute.
Who is it for?
Indie researchers, technical founders, and agent users in knowledge-work plugins who need explicit problem framing before experiments.
Skip if: Routine unit testing, landing page copy, or DevOps tasks—this is upstream research selection, not implementation.
When should I use this skill?
User is deciding which scientific or technical problem to pursue in a knowledge-work or research context (inferred from skill id and collection; confirm against full SKILL.md).
What do I get? / Deliverables
You leave with a defended problem choice—or a short ranked set—with explicit assumptions so the next step can be scoping, prototyping, or literature-backed validation.
- Ranked or selected problem statement with rationale
- Assumptions and risks list for the chosen direction
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
How it compares
Use for research problem framing in agent workflows, not as a generic brainstorming chat without scientific criteria.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is scientific-problem-selection for?
Builders and researchers using Anthropics knowledge-work agent plugins who must commit to one technical or scientific direction among several candidates.
When should I use scientific-problem-selection?
In the Idea phase while researching what to build or study—before you lock a prototype, dataset spend, or multi-week agent automation around the wrong question.
Is scientific-problem-selection safe to install?
Verify license and provenance in the package; review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page before installing skills from the catalog.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Scientific Problem Selection
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