Deep Research When

Deep research, when

The research tool (and /research command) runs a long-horizon pipeline: it decomposes a question into sub-questions, spawns a web-researcher subagent per sub-question, synthesizes per-section drafts, merges them, then runs a two-stage review (structural + subjective critic) before writing a fully-cited report.md under ./research/<slug>/. It is the heaviest tool in the kit - many subagent spawns, many fetches, real wall-clock and token spend. This skill is the policy for when that spend pays off and when a cheaper move wins.

When to use this skill

Reach for research only when most of these hold:

• The answer needs many independent sources, weighed against each other - not one authoritative page.
• The deliverable is a written, cited report the user will keep or share, not a one-line answer.
• The question is open or comparative: "compare the trade-offs of X vs Y vs Z for use-case W", "what is the current state of the art in ...", "survey the approaches to ...".
• Getting it wrong is expensive, so the adversarial review stage (claims fact-checked, structure critiqued) earns its cost.

Do NOT use research when a cheaper path answers the question:

• One page answers it. A single ai-fetch-web fetch (or curl) is seconds, not minutes. Reach for the pipeline only when you would otherwise fan out across a dozen pages by hand.
• It is a lookup, not a survey. "What is the latest stable version of X?" or "what does this API return?" is a fetch, not a research run.
• The answer is in the repo or local files. Read the code, git log, or the docs. Pi's grep-before-read is the move, not web research.
• A scoped subagent suffices. A single explore-type subagent that fetches two or three pages and returns a summary is far cheaper than the full pipeline.
• The question is underspecified. Garbage in, expensive garbage out. Narrow it first (see below).

Workflow

1. Try the cheap path first. Can one fetch, one grep, or one scoped subagent answer it? If yes, do that and stop.
2. Sharpen the question before spending. A vague prompt produces a vague, expensive report. If scope, constraints, region, budget, or use-case are missing, ask 2-3 clarifying questions first - the clarify-with-questionnaire tool is built for exactly this. Weave the answers into the question.
3. Right-size the run. The tool takes optional overrides; tune them to the job instead of accepting defaults blindly:
   • fanoutParallel - cap simultaneous web-researchers. Set to 1 when fanout points at a single local model that cannot handle concurrent requests.
   • wallClockSec - hard wall-clock budget for the fanout (e.g. 7200 for a 2h local-model run).
   • model / fanoutModel / criticModel / planCritModel - per-stage model overrides; push fanout to a cheaper model and keep a stronger one for synthesis when that fits.
   • reviewMaxIter - cap on review iterations (default 4).
4. Launch and let it checkpoint. Only one research run is allowed per session. The planning-critic stage is a checkpoint: if it rejects the plan, the run halts so you can edit plan.json and rerun.
5. Resume rather than restart if a run stalls or exhausts its budget: /research --resume auto-detects the stage from on-disk state, or pin it with --from plan-crit|fanout|synth|review.
6. Deliver the report. The artifacts land under ./research/<slug>/ (plan.json, findings/, report.md, journal.md). Point the user at report.md; summarize the outcome (report-complete / checkpoint / etc.).

Cost discipline

• The pipeline spawns one subagent per sub-question plus critics. A 10-sub-question plan is 10+ child sessions. Treat every run as a deliberate spend, not a default.
• Prefer a tighter wallClockSec and lower fanoutParallel on local models - an unbounded run can grind for hours.
• If the user just wants "a quick sense of X", that is a fetch or a subagent, not a research run. Say so and offer the cheap version first.

Common pitfalls

• Using research as a search box. It is a report generator. For a single fact, fetch.
• Launching on a fuzzy question. Clarify scope first; the review stage cannot fix an ill-posed prompt.
• Ignoring the checkpoint. A rejected plan is a signal to fix the decomposition, not to force the run through.
• Starting a second run mid-session. The tool rejects concurrent runs - wait for or resume the first.

Related docs

• deep-research.md - full pipeline reference: stages, tool params, --resume, artifacts, subagents dispatched.
• ai-fetch-web - the cheap single-fetch alternative to try first.
• clarify-with-questionnaire - narrow an underspecified question before spending.
• subagent-delegation - a scoped subagent is the mid-weight alternative.