Architecture of planetary systems with and without outer giant planets I. Inner planet detections around HD 23079, HD 196067, and HD 86226

Understanding the link between outer giant planets ( and inner light planets ( is key to understanding planetary system formation and architecture. The correlation between these two populations of planets is debated both theoretically -- different formation models predict either a correlation or an anticorrelation -- and observationally. Several recent attempts to constrain this correlation have yielded contradictory results, due to small-number statistics and heterogeneous samples. We present an ongoing long-term observational effort with CORALIE, HARPS, and ESPRESSO to probe the occurrence in systems with and without In this first article of a series, we discuss how, from the design to the observations, we ensured the homogeneity of the samples, both in terms of stellar properties and observing strategy. We also present the first three detections of in our host sample. We find a planet at around a planet at around and we confirm the planet at around . While a rigorous statistical analysis of our samples will be performed in subsequent studies, the relatively low number of detections in our sample seems to contradict previous studies that found a strong correlation.