deep-research

name

deep-research

description

Use when the user asks you to research a topic on the web, do deep research, investigate something across multiple sources, or produce a cited report / literature review from the live web. Decomposes the question, fans out isolated web-search-researcher subagents (one per sub-question) that scrape the real browser, then synthesizes a source-cited Markdown report. Trigger phrases include "research", "deep research", "look this up and cite sources", "investigate", "compare X and Y with sources".

Deep Research

Turn a research question into a cited Markdown report by fanning out to isolated web-search-researcher subagents that use the real browser, then synthesizing their distilled findings. Every claim in the final report carries a source link.

This runs on two browser tools — browser_web_search (ranked SERP, links only) and browser_read_page (URL → clean article text) — used inside the subagents, not by you directly. Both tools open their own isolated tabs, so the fan-out never disturbs the user's tabs or current page. You do not need /browser-setup to have been run by you; if the browser isn't connected the subagents' first tool call will report not_connected — relay that and ask the user to run /browser-setup.

Workflow

1. Decompose

Break the question into 3–6 focused sub-questions, each independently answerable from the web. Cover the distinct facets — definitions, current state, competing options, trade-offs, recent changes — not slight rewordings of the same thing. Aim for coverage: if you synthesized perfect answers to all sub-questions, the original question should be fully answered.

State the sub-questions to the user before dispatching (a short numbered list) so the plan is visible.

2. Fan out

Dispatch one web-search-researcher subagent per sub-question, in parallel where the runtime allows. Each subagent runs in isolated context and returns a distilled, source-linked finding (claims + urls) — not raw pages. Give each subagent exactly one sub-question plus any constraints (recency, specific ecosystem, authoritative sources to prefer).

Do not do the searching yourself — that is the subagents' job, and their isolation is what keeps your context clean enough to synthesize well.

3. Assess coverage — loop with a hard ceiling

After each round of findings, self-assess: is every sub-question answered, or did findings surface new gaps worth a follow-up search?

• If gaps remain and you are under the ceiling, dispatch a second round of researchers targeting only the gaps (rephrased or newly discovered sub-questions).
• Hard ceiling: at most 2 rounds and 8 researcher subagents total. When you hit either limit, stop searching, synthesize with what you have, and list the unresolved gaps explicitly in the report. Never loop indefinitely chasing completeness.

Handle subagent-reported tool failures:

• A subagent reporting a browser_web_search invalid_state with reason: "captcha" means a bot wall. Surface this to the user immediately and do not spawn a tight retry loop — ask whether to continue, wait, or narrow scope.
• reason: "no_results" is already handled inside the subagent (one rephrase); if it still comes back empty, treat that sub-question as a gap.

4. Synthesize a cited report

Merge the distilled findings into a Markdown report written to a file (e.g. research-<topic-slug>.md in the working directory — tell the user the path). Structure:

# {The research question}

## Summary
{A few paragraphs answering the question, synthesized across sources.}

## {Sub-topic / sub-question 1}
{Findings, in prose. Every claim carries a source link inline: … as shown in [Title](url).}

## {Sub-topic 2}
...

## Open questions / gaps
{Anything the ceiling left unresolved, or where sources conflicted.}

## Sources
{Deduplicated list of every URL cited, with titles.}

Rules for the report:

• Every factual claim carries a source link — inline [title](url). No unsourced assertions.
• Attribute conflicts. Where sources disagree, present both and cite each.
• Distinguish synthesis from quotation. Don't fabricate precision the sources didn't provide.
• Be honest about gaps. The gaps section is mandatory when the ceiling cut off coverage — an incomplete-but-honest report beats a complete-looking-but-padded one.

After writing the file, give the user a short chat summary and the file path — don't paste the whole report into the conversation.