Autonomous Research Agents

Build research agents that autonomously explore and discover

Essential Research Tools

Research agents need four categories of tools: discovery (find sources), processing (extract information), analysis (validate claims), and intelligence (synthesize insights). Each tool amplifies agent capabilities.

Interactive: Research Tool Explorer

Explore the essential tools for research agents:

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Search APIs
Discovery
Capability
Query academic databases and web
Example Usage

PubMed, arXiv, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar. Return 50-100 papers per query with titles, abstracts, citations.

Tool Orchestration Pattern

# Research agent orchestrates multiple tools
class ResearchAgent:
    def __init__(self):
        self.search = SearchAPI(apis=['pubmed', 'arxiv', 'scholar'])
        self.extractor = PDFExtractor()
        self.analyzer = CodeExecutor()
        self.brain = SynthesisModel(model='gpt-4')
        
    async def research(self, topic: str) -> Report:
        # 1. Discovery: Find relevant papers
        papers = await self.search.find_papers(topic, limit=100)
        
        # 2. Processing: Extract content from papers
        contents = await asyncio.gather(*[
            self.extractor.extract(paper.url) 
            for paper in papers[:20]  # Process top 20
        ])
        
        # 3. Analysis: Validate key claims
        validated = []
        for content in contents:
            claims = self.brain.extract_claims(content)
            for claim in claims:
                if claim.requires_validation:
                    result = await self.analyzer.validate(claim)
                    validated.append((claim, result))
        
        # 4. Intelligence: Synthesize findings
        report = self.brain.synthesize(
            contents=contents,
            validated=validated,
            format='comprehensive'
        )
        
        return report

Agent coordinates tools in sequence: search → extract → analyze → synthesize. Each tool feeds the next. Parallelization speeds up processing (20 PDFs extracted concurrently).

Tool Selection Strategy

Start Minimal: Begin with 1-2 tools per category. Add more as needs emerge.
Prioritize Coverage: Better to have basic tools for all 4 categories than advanced tools for 1.
Cache Aggressively: Cache search results, extracted content. Research data rarely changes.
Fail Gracefully: If PDF extraction fails, use abstract only. Don't let one tool failure stop research.
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The Tool Advantage

Humans use 1-2 tools (Google Scholar, manual reading). Research agents use 10+ tools (multiple search APIs, automated extraction, code execution, synthesis models). This tool diversity is the key advantage. Agents can query PubMed, arXiv, and Scholar simultaneously, extract from 20 PDFs in parallel, validate claims with code, and synthesize findings - all in minutes.

Research Loop