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.
npx skills add pbc-os/smb-starter-kit --skill autoresearchgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pbc-os/smb-starter-kitWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/autoresearch)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/autoresearch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/autoresearch/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/autoresearch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/pbc-os/smb-starter-kit/autoresearch.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00063 | $0.05489 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00032 | $0.02745 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00013 | $0.01098 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00549 |
Grade B, and why
autoresearch scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 10d 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.
Asks for rootmediumPrivilege escalation
A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.
chmod 444 eval.py # or eval.sh, eval.js, etc. How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 414 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Autoresearch
Autonomous iterative improvement for any measurable system.
Built on Karpathy's autoresearch pattern, extended with:
- Critic agent with binary pass/fail gates and holdout validation — generator/verifier separation so the agent can't grade its own homework
- Coverage-driven exploration instead of pure hill-climbing — don't spend 40 experiments tuning one knob when another knob has never been touched
- Metacognitive self-modification — a meta-reviewer agent that can improve the researcher's own optimization strategy between runs
- Archive of stepping stones — maintain a diverse population of good configurations, not just the single best, so you can branch out when stuck in a local optimum
See the references/ folder for the academic and practitioner sources behind each of these extensions.
Triggers
- "autoresearch"
- "run autoresearch on..."
- "iteratively improve..."
- "optimize [X] autonomously"
- "run experiments on..."
- "self-improve [system]"
- "find better parameters for..."
- "tune [X]"
- User wants to autonomously improve any measurable system
The Pattern
Three agents work in a pipeline, coordinated by a small set of files on disk:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐ │
│ │ RESEARCHER │───▶│ CRITIC │───▶│ META-REVIEWER │ │
│ │ (proposes) │ │ (validates) │ │ (every N exps) │ │
│ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ └──────────────────┘ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ ▼ ▼ ▼ │
│ 1. Analyze weakness 4. Holdout gate 7. Review full log │
│ 2. Form hypothesis 5. Overfitting check 8. Update strategy │
│ 3. Change 1 param 6. Binary pass/fail 9. Suggest new │
│ + run eval → KEEP/DISCARD dimensions │
│ │ │ │ │
│ └───────────────────┴────────────────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌───────▼────────┐ │
│ │ COVERAGE MAP │ │
│ │ What's been │ │
│ │ explored? │ │
│ │ What's missing?│ │
│ └────────────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌───────▼────────┐ │
│ │ ARCHIVE │ │
│ │ Top N configs │ │
│ │ Branch from │ │
│ │ diverse parents│ │
│ └────────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
What ships with it
6 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
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.
- 10d ago First seen · 414 lines · 63 tokens per session scan B 7b84a634e731
autoresearch is a skill published in the GitHub repository pbc-os/smb-starter-kit (10 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 63 tokens to every session and 5,489 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (asks for root). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.
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