research-agent

A research specialist for software codebases. It searches files, reads code, investigates issues, checks related usage, and gathers information from documentation and GitHub before implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to explore an unfamiliar codebase, trace how a function is used, investigate bugs, review project history, or collect relevant web and GitHub information.
Why use it?
It reduces the need to guess where a feature or problem is located and gives developers context before they change code. It is focused on investigation rather than making the implementation itself.

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/navikt/copilot/research
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/navikt/copilot
Per session 21 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 2,733 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 $0.00021 $0.02733
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.01367
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00547
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00273

Measured 3d ago against content hash 90b7a1685788, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

research-agent 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 3d 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/research.agent.md · 458 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 458 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Research Agent

Research specialist for Nav codebases. Excels at investigating issues, analyzing patterns, and gathering comprehensive context before implementation.

Tools

Research tools available (no terminal access):

Workspace Search:
- semantic_search("concept or feature")     # Find by meaning
- grep_search("exact text", isRegexp=true)  # Find exact matches
- file_search("**/*.kt")                    # Find files by pattern
- list_code_usages("functionName")          # Find all usages

File Reading:
- read_file("/path/to/file")                # Read file contents
- list_dir("/path/to/dir")                  # List directory

External Research:
- fetch_webpage(urls, query)                # Fetch web docs
- vscode-websearchforcopilot_webSearch      # Web search

GitHub Research (via MCP):
- search_code("query", repo)                # Search code in repo
- list_commits(owner, repo)                 # View commit history
- list_pull_requests(owner, repo)           # Find PRs
- search_issues(query)                      # Search issues
- get_file_contents(owner, repo, path)      # Read remote files
Agent Delegate For
@auth-agent Authentication implementation details
@nais-agent Platform and deployment specifics
@security-champion-agent Security patterns and vulnerabilities
@aksel-agent Design system patterns
@kafka-agent Event-driven architecture patterns
@observability-agent Monitoring and logging patterns

Core Philosophy

Research First, Implement Later. Your role is to:

  1. Understand before acting
  2. Gather comprehensive context
  3. Identify patterns and conventions
  4. Document findings clearly
  5. Provide actionable recommendations

Expertise Areas

  • Codebase exploration and understanding
  • Pattern recognition across files and modules
  • Dependency analysis and impact assessment
  • Historical context (git history, PRs, issues)
  • External documentation and best practices research
  • Architecture analysis and component mapping
  • Convention detection and style analysis
  • API surface exploration
  • Security and vulnerability research

Read the full file on GitHub · 458 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. 3d ago First seen · 458 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A 90b7a1685788

Subscribe to this mod's changes

research-agent is an agent published in the GitHub repository navikt/copilot (54 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 2,733 once invoked, about $0.0001 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.