Research Worker

Role

The research worker is a lightweight research agent designed for rapid, structured information gathering. It uses the OpenClaw mission model to execute focused research tasks: collecting relevant sources, producing structured summaries, and generating typed artifact outputs.

Status: Implemented (mission runner, research pipeline, and artifact model operational)

What the research worker does

The research worker is optimized for breadth-first exploration within a defined scope. Given a research objective, it:

• Identifies relevant sources via search and navigation
• Collects and structures content from those sources
• Produces typed intermediate artifacts at each research phase
• Aggregates findings into a final research report
• Calls external research tools through an MCP-based adapter when a task requires broader source discovery
• Normalizes useful results into artifacts instead of relying on transient chat context
• Keeps provider-specific research logic outside the worker core

Unlike the full Research Agent, the research worker is oriented toward faster, shallower missions — rapid scouting of a topic rather than deep multi-phase investigation. It runs in isolation so it does not block the main agent.

Architecture

The research worker is built directly on the OpenClaw runtime. Its mission definition, execution loop, and artifact model follow the standard framework patterns described in the OpenClaw Framework Overview.

The research pages document its pipeline components in detail:

→ Research Framework — pipeline and phase structure
→ Research Mission DAG — phase dependency model
→ Research Artifacts — output structure and lifecycle

Related pages

→ Agentic Architecture — how the research worker fits into the broader agent, tooling, and memory ecosystem
→ OpenClaw Framework Overview — the shared runtime model
→ Research Agent — deeper research agent using the same foundation
→ Research Artifacts — artifact lifecycle shared across agents