research-tracker

name	research-tracker
description	Manage autonomous AI research agents with SQLite-based state tracking. Use when spawning long-running research sub-agents, tracking multi-step investigations, coordinating agent handoffs, or monitoring background work. Triggers on: research projects, sub-agent coordination, autonomous investigation, progress tracking, agent oversight.

Research Tracker

CLI tool for managing autonomous research agents with append-only state, instruction queues, and oversight.

Prerequisites

brew tap 1645labs/tap
brew install julians-research-tracker

Or: go install github.com/1645labs/julians-research-tracker/cmd/research@latest

Quick Start

Start a research project

research init market-q1 --name "Q1 Market Analysis" --objective "Analyze competitor pricing and positioning"

As the research agent — log progress

export RESEARCH_SESSION_ID="$SESSION_KEY"  # Track which agent is writing

research log market-q1 STEP_BEGIN --step 1 --payload '{"task":"gather sources"}'
# ... do work ...
research log market-q1 STEP_COMPLETE --step 1
research heartbeat market-q1

Check status (from main session or heartbeat)

research status market-q1 --json
research context market-q1 --last 5  # Truncated context for prompts

Send instructions to running agent

research instruct market-q1  --priority URGENT
research stop-signal market-q1