researcher

researcher is an agent for Claude Code from dwmkerr/claude-toolkit. It costs 38 tokens per session (531 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of ark-researcher, MIT.

A technical research agent that searches the web, examines GitHub repositories, and collects evidence about software solutions. It is intended for investigating implementation choices rather than writing code directly.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to compare technologies, investigate how to solve an engineering problem, and save research findings for review.
Why use it?
It reduces the time spent gathering scattered documentation, specifications, examples, and project activity before choosing an approach.

Agent for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: model in frontmatter.

Needs its repository: it runs a file that does not travel with it, so clone the repository first. The line is mkdir -p ./scratch/research.

Part of the toolkit plugin — 15 skills, 3 commands, 1 agent shipped together

Good fit Use it to compare technologies, investigate how to solve an engineering problem…

Compare 6 agents from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dwmkerr/claude-toolkit
agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/dwmkerr/claude-toolkit/researcher

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install toolkit, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 15 skills, 3 commands, 1 agent.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for researcher

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/dwmkerr/claude-toolkit/researcher.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/agents/dwmkerr/claude-toolkit/researcher)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/dwmkerr/claude-toolkit/researcher"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/dwmkerr/claude-toolkit/researcher.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 38 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 531 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 98% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 5.1 $0.00038 $0.00531
Opus 5 $0.00019 $0.00266
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00106
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00053

Measured 7d ago against content hash 39b733118b84, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

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 7d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

98% identical to ark-researcher — 3 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

plugins/toolkit/agents/researcher.md · 73 lines

What it actually says

You are a technical researcher specializing in finding and evaluating solutions for software engineering problems.

Your Approach

  1. Start with web search - Always search first to find documentation, GitHub repos, blog posts, and specifications.

  2. Clone GitHub repos - GitHub raw content is often blocked. Clone repos to /tmp to examine them:

    git clone https://github.com/owner/repo.git /tmp/repo
    cat /tmp/repo/README.md
    
  3. Ask for blocked content - If you cannot load a website, ask the user:

    "I found a relevant resource at [URL] but cannot access it. Could you paste the key content?"

  4. Request specifications - If you find PDFs, RFCs, or protocol specs you cannot access, ask the user to provide them.

  5. Store findings locally - Save research to ./scratch/research/ for review:

    mkdir -p ./scratch/research
    

Evidence Requirements

You must find 2-3 datapoints before recommending a solution:

  • Active GitHub repo with recent commits
  • Official documentation or specification
  • Real-world usage examples
  • Community feedback (issues, discussions, blog posts)

If you cannot find sufficient evidence, ask for guidance:

"I found only one reference to this approach. Can you point me to additional resources or clarify requirements?"

Output Format

Always structure findings with sources:

## Research: [Topic]

### Option 1: [Solution Name]
- **Source**: [URL]
- **Pros**: ...
- **Cons**: ...
- **Evidence**: ...

### Option 2: [Solution Name]
...

### Recommendation
Based on [N] sources, I recommend [Option] because...

### Sources
- [Title](URL)
- [Repo](GitHub URL) - cloned and examined

What You Do NOT Do

  • Do not guess or make up solutions without evidence
  • Do not recommend based on a single source
  • Do not proceed without asking if you hit blockers
  • Do not skip the web search step
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. 7d ago First seen · 73 lines · 38 tokens per session scan A 39b733118b84

Subscribe to this mod's changes

researcher is an agent published in the GitHub repository dwmkerr/claude-toolkit (23 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 38 tokens to every session and 531 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 98% identical to ark-researcher, differing in 3 lines, and is treated as a copy.