75. Year 2–3 — Research

Theme: enter the community — from consumer of research to contributor.

Papers (the reading practice, now load-bearing): two papers weekly through Ch. 52's three-pass; maintain the claims matrix in your niche; by year-end you have the field map (Ch. 55.2) that makes gaps visible.

Reproduction (months 24–30): Project 6 — two or three careful reproductions in your specialization, deviation ledgers and all, published (Ch. 53.8). This is the year's engine: reproduction builds every downstream capability simultaneously.

Open-source (continuous): the Ch. 62.5 ladder — from docs-and-examples through component ownership toward committership in your specialization's flagship project (stim or PyMatching for QEC; Qiskit/PyZX for compilers; Cirq/PennyLane for algorithms...). By month 36: you are a known contributor somewhere.

Research collaborations (months 30–36): Ch. 62.7's correspondence, now converting — remote collaborations arranged with groups whose work you've reproduced or extended; the undersung version (contributing to a group's repo, co-developing a tool) counts fully and starts easier than co-authorship.

Technical writing (cadence): the blog at biweekly-or-better, increasingly in your specialization; one write-up per reproduction; your Year-2 project written as a proper technical report.

Deliverable: research contribution. One thing that did not exist before you: an extension of a reproduced paper, a tool adopted by others, a negative-result study with clean methodology, a benchmark finding — small is fine; new and public is mandatory. Ideal form: a workshop-paper-grade write-up or a merged, substantial OSS contribution that practitioners use. Year-3 exit audit: Ch. 59.8's checklist — all boxes except laboratory access; Ch. 63.11's dossier — thick with dated evidence; Ch. 63.12's network — real, with names. You are employable/contributable now; the remaining year is transition.