Add the Commons reference-board research tool

docs/asset-tooling.md

@@ -192,6 +192,32 @@ Caveats:
   Blender still prints its own version banner before the script runs, so intake scripts should use
   `--json --out <file>` rather than parsing stdout.
 
+### Reference-board research (`refboard`)
+
+`tools/refboard.py` searches, fetches and documents Wikimedia Commons photos of a real location for
+the [`screens/refs/`](screens/refs/README.md) boards. It is stdlib-only and never commits anything
+itself: downloads land in `tmp/`, and moving a file into a board folder is a deliberate manual step
+that goes through the sidecar licence gate.
+
+```bash
+# search: keyword, geosearch (the reliable "photos of this exact place"), or category
+python3 tools/refboard.py search --source geo "34.10118|-118.34009" --limit 60 --months 12
+python3 tools/refboard.py search "El Capitan Entertainment Centre" --source search
+python3 tools/refboard.py search "Hollywood Masonic Temple" --source category --json
+# fetch the usable rows into tmp/ (review-only rows need --include-review)
+python3 tools/refboard.py search ... --json > /tmp/manifest.json
+python3 tools/refboard.py fetch --from /tmp/manifest.json --dir tmp/research/<block> --max 12
+# emit SIDECAR + README table rows from the fetched manifest
+python3 tools/refboard.py rows --from tmp/research/<block>/meta.json
+```
+
+Licence gate: `Public domain`, `CC0` and `CC BY` are committable with attribution; `CC BY-SA` rows
+are flagged `review` and stay research-only until the share-alike decision is written into the
+sidecar (`--allow-ccbysa` marks them committable after that review); anything else is skipped.
+`--months 12` flags recent captures so a "current reality" photo can be distinguished from the
+older geometry evidence. Network gotchas baked in: a descriptive User-Agent, batched `titles=`
+metadata queries and ~3 s download spacing to avoid Commons HTTP 429s.
+
 ### Texel density (`texels`)
 
 `texel_density()` and the `texels` command compute `resolution * sqrt(UV area / world area)` per