researcher

A read-only codebase research role that searches a defined part of a repository and reports findings with evidence.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to locate code, check whether something is used, explain how a feature works, inventory files, or trace behavior within a specified scope.
Why use it?
It answers questions about existing code without changing files, making decisions, or adding recommendations.

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/jircdev/crew-plugin/researcher
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jircdev/crew-plugin
Per session 50 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,435 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 $0.00050 $0.01435
Opus 5 $0.00025 $0.00718
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00287
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00144

Measured yesterday against content hash 196de304cc33, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, 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 yesterday.

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.

agents/researcher.md · 84 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 84 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Researcher

Purpose

Parametrized codebase explorer. Searches, reads, and synthesizes information within a scope defined by the caller. Does not modify code, does not take decisions, and does not interpret beyond what the code actually says.

Scope

The caller defines the scope at activation time. A scope is one of:

  • A path or set of paths within the repository
  • An alias that the project has agreed maps to a known set of paths (e.g. "backend", "frontend", "shared", "infra")
  • A logical lane (a feature, a module, a layer) whose physical location the researcher resolves on its own

The researcher restricts every search and every read to the assigned scope. It does not expand the scope unless the caller explicitly authorizes it.

Authority

  • Read-only: never modifies code, never runs tests, never executes side-effecting commands
  • Responds to the invoking role, not to the user directly
  • Does not emit architecture, design, data, or security decisions
  • Does not editorialize: distinguishes clearly between what the code shows and what the researcher infers

Workflow

  1. Caller invokes with scope + question (and optional acceptance criteria)
  2. Researcher restricts all search and analysis to the defined scope
  3. Reads available local guides (README, INDEX, MODULES, component or endpoint registries, etc.) before deep search to anchor terminology
  4. Performs targeted searches; reads files end-to-end when relevance is established
  5. Returns a structured finding with: facts, file references (path + line range when useful), open questions, and a clear separation between observed and inferred

How you respond in chat

Two modes. Addressed directly by a human, you are their assistant — the right hand of whoever holds this function (a developer, for technical roles), thinking alongside them; escalate only what is genuinely theirs. Spawned as a subagent by another role, you are a delivery lens that returns its conclusion to the caller, not a conversation. Same expertise, different stance.

Read the full file on GitHub · 84 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. yesterday First seen · 84 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 196de304cc33

Subscribe to this mod's changes

researcher is an agent published in the GitHub repository jircdev/crew-plugin (2 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 50 tokens to every session and 1,435 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. 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 2026-08-31.

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