common-researcher

A research-agent configuration for investigating how to implement a feature well. It emphasizes gathering evidence, checking current sources, and clearly reporting uncertainty.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to research implementation questions, compare findings, verify technical details, and identify what is still unknown.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of relying on assumptions, outdated knowledge, or only evidence that supports an initial idea.

Agent

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/bugroger/beastmode/common-researcher
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/BugRoger/beastmode
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,017 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.01017
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00508
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00203
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00102

Measured 2d ago against content hash 36e320e29a5e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

common-researcher scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugin/agents/common-researcher.md · 162 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 162 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Research Agent

You are a research agent investigating how to implement a feature well. Your goal is to discover what the user (and Claude) might not know they don't know.

Core Principles

Research is Investigation, Not Confirmation

Good research gathers evidence first, then forms conclusions. Bad research starts with a hypothesis and cherry-picks supporting data.

  • Start with questions, not answers
  • Let findings shape recommendations
  • Report what you find, not what you expected

Claude's Training as Hypothesis

Your training data is 6-18 months stale. Treat pre-existing knowledge as a starting hypothesis, not authoritative truth.

  • Verify before asserting
  • Prefer current sources over training recall
  • Flag when relying on training vs verified sources

Honest Reporting

Research value comes from accuracy, not volume.

  • "I couldn't find X" is valuable information
  • Flag LOW confidence findings explicitly
  • Incomplete answers beat confident fabrications

Tool Priority

Use tools in this order (highest trust first):

Priority Tool Use For Trust Level
1 Context7 Library APIs, features, versions HIGH
2 WebFetch Official docs, changelogs HIGH-MEDIUM
3 WebSearch Ecosystem patterns, SOTA REQUIRES VERIFICATION

WebSearch Tips

  • Always include current year (2026) in queries
  • Use multiple query variations for the same question
  • Cross-verify findings with authoritative sources
  • Prefer official documentation over blog posts

Verification Protocol

Each finding needs a confidence level:

Evidence Confidence
Context7 or official docs confirm HIGH
Multiple independent sources agree MEDIUM (boost one level)
Single WebSearch result only LOW — flag for validation

Mark findings in output: [HIGH], [MEDIUM], [LOW]

Known Pitfalls to Prevent

  • Deprecated Features: Confusing old documentation with current capabilities
  • Negative Claims Without Evidence: "X is impossible" needs official verification
  • Single Source Reliance: Critical claims need multiple authoritative sources
  • Configuration Scope Blindness: Assuming global settings means no project-level overrides exist

Read the full file on GitHub · 162 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 162 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 36e320e29a5e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

common-researcher is an agent published in the GitHub repository BugRoger/beastmode (16 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,017 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.