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Module 04 · Company playbooks

Science lab

A plan for a research group or a lab: the Scientist searches the literature, plans experiments, checks every result, and writes papers.

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StellarFirm for scientists puts one AI Agent Assistant first: the Scientist. It works in mathematics, physics, particle physics, accelerator physics, astrophysics, computer science, engineering, data and statistics, structural biology, drug discovery, and medical research. It searches the literature and public databases with checked sources, plans experiments, checks results symbolically and numerically, and writes papers in LaTeX. You are the CEO: the lead researcher. You approve every email, calendar hold, and file that leaves the chat.

Who this is for#

CompanyA research group, a lab, or a research team in a company
Team size1 to 50
Main goalMove from question to checked result to paper faster
Start withOne Scientist for your main field, then one per field your group works in
Biggest riskA result, a number, or a citation nobody checked

Your assistants#

AssistantRole in this plan
ScientistResearch briefs, literature searches, hypotheses and experiment plans, symbolic and numerical checks, proofs, reproducible analyses, referee reports, and papers in LaTeX
Professor's assistantTurns results into lectures, notes, and exercises for students and new members of the group

Hire a Scientist per field, for example a mathematician, a particle physicist, and a data and statistics scientist, each with its own focus.

Suggested house rules#

Text
House rules
1. Never invent a result, a datum, a citation, or a quote. Say what you could not check.
2. Every number is computed or found, never guessed, and every analysis can be run again.
3. A conjecture is a conjecture until it is proved.
4. The Scientist never signs off an engineering design. A qualified engineer does.
5. Emails and calendar invites wait for my Approve.

Preflight#

  • Sign in at https://science.stellarfirm.ai/app with your invitation. That address opens StellarFirm for scientists, with the ready-made Particle physics lab under Starter templates and your work in the Library kept by experiment.
  • Connect your files and notes on Integrations: Google Drive, OneDrive, or SharePoint, and Notion if your group keeps notes there.
  • Connect research sources: Hugging Face for models and datasets, and the web research tools such as Exa and Tavily.
  • On StellarFirm web there is nothing to connect for the public research databases. The Scientist reads INSPIRE-HEP, arXiv, the Particle Data Group's Review of Particle Physics and the CERN Open Data portal on its own, and Europe PMC, RCSB PDB, AlphaFold DB and UniProt for the life sciences. For a HEPData table, download its CSV in your browser and attach it.
  • Put one folder per project in your drive: papers, data, and figures.
  • Write your house rules in the company brief.

Launch: Day 1#

  1. Write the research brief.
PromptResearch brief
Scientist, write a research brief on [question]: what is known, the key papers with their sources, the open problems, and what we could test first.
  1. Check a result.
PromptCheck a derivation
Scientist, check this derivation step by step, symbolically and numerically. Mark every step you could not verify. [attach or paste derivation]
  1. Approve what goes out. Anything sent waits in Approvals.

First week#

PromptLiterature search
Scientist, find the most cited and the most recent work on [topic]. Give each source with a link, one line on what it shows, and say which you could not check.
PromptOpen data
Scientist, reproduce [a published distribution or a resonance] from a small released data file on the CERN Open Data portal. Fit it with uncertainties, keep a resonance's natural width at the Particle Data Group's value, compare the result with the Particle Data Group, and cite every record.
PromptExperiment plan
Scientist, propose a hypothesis on [question] and an experiment to test it: what we measure, the controls, the sample size, and how we analyse the result.
PromptReproducible analysis
Scientist, analyse [dataset] to answer [question]. Keep the analysis reproducible, show the figures, and give the uncertainty on every number.
PromptPaper in LaTeX
Scientist, draft a paper in LaTeX from our notes in [folder]: abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion, with every citation checked.
PromptReferee report
Scientist, write a referee report on this paper: its claims, whether the evidence supports them, and the questions I should ask. [attach paper]

Steady orbit#

  • Every week. Ask for a literature update on your topics, as a routine.
  • Every experiment. Ask for the plan before, and the reproducible analysis after.
  • Every paper. Ask for a check of every citation and every number before you submit.

The rest of the team#

The Scientist leads here, and the other assistants are there when you need them:

  • Professor's assistant: turns a result into a lecture or a set of exercises for students.
  • Coder: turns an analysis into production code or a tool for the group.
  • Copywriter: helps you edit grant text and papers in your own words.

Pitfalls#

  • Trusting a number nobody computed. Ask the Scientist where each number came from.
  • Citations from memory. Every source needs a link the Scientist checked.
  • Skipping the plan. Agree the experiment plan before you run it, not after.