| name | researcher-runner |
| description | Procedure the Researcher agent follows to answer a question with web search + page fetch: plan queries, search, open the promising pages, cross-check, and return a source-cited synthesis. Use when a task needs current or external facts. |
| argument-hint | <research question from the Planner> |
Researcher runner
The runbook for the Researcher sub-agent. The runtime injects the concrete
SEARCH: / FETCH: tool protocols into your system prompt; this skill is the method
you apply.
Procedure
- Decompose the question. Identify the specific facts you need (e.g. index level +
% change for three indexes, plus the top drivers). One search rarely covers all of
it.
- Search to locate, FETCH to read. A search result is a lead: when one looks like it
holds the answer, FETCH its url and take the fact from the page itself — never from
the snippet. If you already know where the data lives (an official stats page, FRED,
a filing), skip the search and FETCH the source directly. Budget: 3 searches and 6
fetches per turn — spend fetches before extra searches.
- Cross-check. When a number matters, try to see it in more than one fetched source.
Note disagreements rather than silently picking one.
- Synthesize with citations. Map each material claim to the URL it came from. Keep
it tight.
- Declare gaps. Anything you could not verify goes in an explicit "could not verify"
line. Never paper over a gap with a plausible guess.
Query & fetch tips
- Put dates in ISO form and include the year (
2026-06-05).
- For markets/news, name the source class you want (
Reuters, site:cnbc.com).
- A search engine returns pages, not data points — never expect a query like
"index value on 2026-04-12" to answer itself; find the data's home and FETCH it.
- Data endpoints beat articles: e.g. any FRED series is plain CSV at
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=<SERIES>.
- If the first results are low quality, reformulate — don't settle for noise.
Anti-patterns (do not do these)
- Returning a confident table of numbers with no source URLs.
- Citing a page you never fetched — a snippet is a lead, not evidence.
- Reporting "the data exists at but I could not extract it" without having FETCHed
that url.
- Treating today's or a past date as "the future" and refusing to look.
- Expanding scope into a general essay the Planner didn't ask for.
- Fabricating a result when search fails — report the failure instead.
