3-Tier Web Access for Agents: Search/Fetch/Browser Separation Cuts Context Pollution by 82%
Dan-Mercede · reddit · 2026-07-06
The author proposes splitting Agent web access into three distinct roles: Search returns only candidate URLs without reading full text; Fetch converts pages into clean Markdown before passing them to the model (tests show a reduction from 9541 tokens to 1678 tokens on the same page, saving 82%); and Browser specifically handles operations requiring stateful interaction. The core philosophy is to prevent raw HTML—along with irrelevant navigation bars, scripts, and ads—from polluting the Agent's working memory. This layered design balances token costs with context quality.
More from coding & agent
- Alex Townsend posts 200 open problems in numerical linear algebra for humans and AI agents — IgorCarron · 2026-09-11
- Kimi K2.8 Preview rolls out: near-K3 coding performance, 1M context for all tiers — teortaxesTex · 2026-09-11
- Looking for a classifier of software engineering task shapes to pick models per task — StewartalsopIII · 2026-09-11
- Steal this idea: prompt-to-hardware where agents assemble custom devices — paraschopra · 2026-09-11
- Model Is the Least Interesting Part: A Guide to Six Core AI Architectures from RAG to Multi-Agent — goyalshaliniuk · 2026-09-11
- Non-coder builds layered memory architecture: 20k tokens tracks a year of agent conversations — matteoianni · 2026-09-11