# Methodology Action — Governance Guidelines

These guidelines govern the quality and rigor standards for the **methodology** phase of a research mission. The deliverable is a documented research design that another researcher could read, reproduce, and audit.

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## Core Authorship Focus

- Choose a **research approach** explicitly: Systematic Literature Review, Survey, Experiment, Case Study, Mixed Methods, or Review-of-Reviews. Name the framework you are following.
- Document **methodology decisions** as ADR-shaped artifacts. A research methodology is a decision record: it captures the choice, the rationale, the alternatives considered, and the trade-offs accepted.
- Articulate methodology decisions clearly enough for **reproducibility and peer review**. A reader who has not done this research must be able to redo it.

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## Methodology Components to Lock Down

- **Phases and timeline** — name each phase (question formation, gathering, analysis, synthesis, publication) and the deliverable that ends it.
- **Data sources** — which databases, repositories, or populations? Distinguish primary from secondary sources.
- **Search strategy** — keywords, inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria. Vague search strategies produce non-reproducible reviews.
- **Analysis framework** — coding scheme, synthesis method (thematic analysis, meta-analysis, narrative synthesis), and quality assessment approach.
- **Quality criteria** — how will source quality be evaluated? How will confidence levels be assigned?

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## Reproducibility Standards

- Every methodology decision must be **traceable**: a later reader can find the rationale without asking the original researcher.
- **Cite the framework** you are following (e.g., PRISMA for systematic reviews) rather than inventing ad-hoc procedure.
- Where you deviate from a standard framework, document the deviation and why.
- Pre-register exclusion criteria. Adjusting exclusion criteria after seeing results is a validity threat, not a refinement.

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## What This Phase Does NOT Cover

The methodology action locks the research design. It does **not**:

- Re-open the research question or scope (those are scoping decisions, already locked).
- Begin source gathering or evidence extraction (that is the gathering action's job).
- Draw conclusions or synthesize findings (that is the synthesis action's job).
- Format publication output (that is the output action's job).

A methodology document that already cites specific findings is a leaked synthesis. Keep the phases clean.

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## Quality Gates

- The methodology specifies enough detail that an independent researcher could reproduce the gathering and analysis.
- Each major design choice is documented as a decision with rationale.
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria are concrete (not "relevant sources").
- The chosen framework is named, and any deviations from it are explicit.
