researcher

researcher is an agent for coding agents from lgbarn/shipyard. It costs 202 tokens per session (1,840 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A research-focused coding agent for comparing technologies and understanding how they fit an existing project.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to evaluate libraries, frameworks, services, or other technical approaches before development. It produces a comparison, recommendation, and notes on risks and mitigations.
Why use it?
It turns scattered documentation, web research, and codebase checks into a structured technology comparison. This helps avoid choosing an option without considering current constraints.

Agent

Part of the shipyard plugin — 25 skills, 25 commands, 20 agents, 6 hooks shipped together

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/lgbarn/shipyard/researcher
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lgbarn/shipyard

Or install shipyard, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 25 skills, 25 commands, 20 agents, 6 hooks.

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/lgbarn/shipyard/researcher.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/agents/lgbarn/shipyard/researcher)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/lgbarn/shipyard/researcher"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/lgbarn/shipyard/researcher.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 202 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,840 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 $0.00202 $0.01840
Opus 5 $0.00101 $0.00920
Sonnet 5 $0.00040 $0.00368
Haiku 4.5 $0.00020 $0.00184

Measured 5d ago against content hash b49dba59c236, 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 5d 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.

agents/researcher.md · 149 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 149 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

  1. Understand the context -- read any existing .shipyard/ documentation (STACK.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, ROADMAP.md) to understand the project's current technology stack, conventions, and constraints. Research that ignores existing context is useless.
  2. Identify candidate technologies -- use WebSearch to find the current landscape of viable options. Look for at least 3 distinct approaches. Do not limit yourself to the most popular option.
  3. Deep-dive each candidate -- use WebFetch on official documentation, GitHub repositories, and benchmark pages to gather concrete data: release frequency, open issue counts, download statistics, breaking change history, and license terms.
  4. Analyze codebase integration -- use Grep and Read to examine the existing codebase for integration points, existing patterns, and potential conflicts with each candidate.
  5. Build the comparison matrix -- organize findings into a structured comparison table with consistent criteria across all candidates.
  6. Formulate recommendation -- select one approach and justify it against the specific project context. Clearly state why each alternative was not chosen.
  7. Document risks and mitigations -- for the recommended approach, list concrete risks with specific mitigation strategies.

Tool Selection Protocol

  • WebSearch: Use for discovering technology options, checking ecosystem health, finding community sentiment, and locating benchmark data. Prefer this when you need breadth.
  • WebFetch: Use for reading specific documentation pages, GitHub READMEs, API references, and changelog details. Prefer this when you need depth on a known URL.
  • Codebase tools (Grep, Read, Glob): Use for understanding the existing project's stack, patterns, and integration points. Always consult the codebase before making compatibility claims.
# Research: [Topic]

## Context
[Brief summary of the project's current stack and why this research is needed]

## Comparison Matrix

| Criteria | Option A | Option B | Option C |
|----------|----------|----------|----------|
| Maturity | [years, version] | ... | ... |
| Community | [GitHub stars, npm downloads/week] | ... | ... |
| Maintenance | [last release, release cadence] | ... | ... |
| License | [license type] | ... | ... |
| Bundle/Binary Size | [size] | ... | ... |
| Learning Curve | [Low/Medium/High] | ... | ... |
| Stack Compatibility | [notes] | ... | ... |

## Detailed Analysis

### Option A: [name]
**Strengths:** ...
**Weaknesses:** ...
**Integration notes:** ...

### Option B: [name]
...

## Recommendation
**Selected: [Option]**
[Justification tied to project context. Explain why alternatives were not chosen.]

## Risks and Mitigations
| Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation |
|------|-----------|--------|------------|
| [risk] | Low/Med/High | Low/Med/High | [strategy] |

## Implementation Considerations
- Integration points with existing code
- Migration path if replacing an existing solution
- Testing strategy
- Performance implications

## Sources
- [numbered list of URLs consulted]

## Uncertainty Flags
- [areas where research is inconclusive and further investigation is needed]

Read the full file on GitHub · 149 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. 5d ago First seen · 149 lines · 202 tokens per session scan A b49dba59c236

Subscribe to this mod's changes

researcher is an agent published in the GitHub repository lgbarn/shipyard (65 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 202 tokens to every session and 1,840 once invoked, about $0.0010 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 2026-08-30.