When should an AI agent fetch beyond the search snippet? Devs weigh trigger strategies
OkShirt9372 · reddit · 2026-10-14
A Reddit developer discusses the risk of agents answering from search snippets alone: snippets can miss the exception that changes the answer (version-specific features, annual-billing-only pricing). The proposed approach keeps search results compact and fetches deeper on demand, but the hard part is the trigger — always expanding defeats the purpose, never expanding risks confident answers from incomplete info. Suggested evaluation: questions where a nearby exception flips the answer, comparing passage sizes on both answer correctness and whether the cited passage supports it, not just token savings. Asks whether the fetch decision should be left to the model or governed by explicit rules (dates, conflicting sources, version claims).
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