A research agent works better when it can stop instead of forcing an answer
Harshit-24 · reddit · 2026-07-28
The author found that their research agent was being rewarded for producing a polished brief even when the evidence was weak. That meant stale hiring pages, vague funding articles, or inferred technology choices could still become confident recommendations.
They fixed it by adding a decision gate before synthesis: discovery collects source-backed signals, verification separates fact from inference, deterministic checks validate fields and dates, and the agent must return CONTINUE, HOLD, or STOP. Only CONTINUE may proceed to synthesis. The post argues that the biggest improvement came from separating discovery, verification, and judgment, and from making the system able to decline to finish when the evidence is not good enough.
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