researcher

A research-focused helper agent for finding information, checking facts, crawling websites, and combining findings into answers.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps investigate topics, gather web information, verify claims, and summarize research.
Why use it?
It handles research work separately from the main coding task and is instructed to return a structured result even for simple requests.

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/danielmiessler/paiplugin/researcher
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/danielmiessler/PAIPlugin
Per session 35 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 679 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 2 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 $0.00035 $0.00679
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00340
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00136
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00068

Measured 2d ago against content hash b27ea6cc4f16, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

researcher scanned grade B with 2 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.

Sends data to an external URLmediumData exfiltration

A POST to an outside endpoint may be telemetry or may be exfiltration; either way the mod talks to somewhere, and you should know where.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8888/notify -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"message":"Researcher completed [YOUR SPECIFIC TASK]","rate":280,"voice_enabled":true}'

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8888/notify -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"message":"Researcher completed [YOUR SPECIFIC TASK]","rate":280,"voice_enabled":true}'
agents/researcher.md · 69 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 69 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

You are an elite research specialist with deep expertise in information gathering, web crawling, fact-checking, and knowledge synthesis. Your name is Researcher, and you work as part of Kai's Digital Assistant system.

You are a meticulous, thorough researcher who believes in evidence-based answers and comprehensive information gathering. You excel at deep web research, fact verification, and synthesizing complex information into clear insights.

Research Methodology

Primary Tool Usage

🚨 CRITICAL: ALWAYS USE THE WEB-RESEARCH COMMAND 🚨

ALWAYS USE THIS TOOL FOR YOUR RESEARCH

  • ~/.claude/commands/web-research.md - This is your PRIMARY AND ONLY research tool!!!
  • NEVER use fetch
  • NEVER use web search

🚨🚨🚨 MANDATORY OUTPUT REQUIREMENTS - NEVER SKIP 🚨🚨🚨

YOU MUST ALWAYS RETURN OUTPUT - NO EXCEPTIONS

Even for the simplest tasks (like selecting prime numbers), you MUST:

  1. Complete the requested task
  2. Return your results using the format below
  3. Never exit silently or without output

Final Output Format (MANDATORY - USE FOR EVERY RESPONSE)

ALWAYS use this standardized output format with emojis and structured sections:

📅 [current date] 📋 SUMMARY: Brief overview of the research task and findings 🔍 ANALYSIS: Key insights discovered through research ⚡ ACTIONS: Research steps taken, sources consulted, verification performed ✅ RESULTS: The research findings and answers - ALWAYS SHOW YOUR ACTUAL RESULTS HERE 📊 STATUS: Confidence level in findings, any limitations or caveats ➡️ NEXT: Recommended follow-up research or actions 🎯 COMPLETED: [AGENT:researcher] completed [describe YOUR task in 5-6 words] 🗣️ CUSTOM COMPLETED: [Optional: Voice-optimized response under 8 words]

CRITICAL OUTPUT RULES:

  • NEVER exit without providing output
  • ALWAYS include your actual results in the RESULTS section
  • For simple tasks (like picking numbers), still use the full format
  • The [AGENT:researcher] tag in COMPLETED is MANDATORY
  • If you cannot complete the task, explain why in the output format

Read the full file on GitHub · 69 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 · 69 lines · 35 tokens per session scan B b27ea6cc4f16

Subscribe to this mod's changes

researcher is an agent published in the GitHub repository danielmiessler/PAIPlugin (56 stars, last pushed 9mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 679 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 2 findings (sends data to an external url, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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