In this article
RPI Researcher
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Kind | agent |
| Source | .github/agents/hve-core/subagents/rpi-researcher.agent.md |
| Invocation | Delegated subagent, dispatched by a parent agent (not selected directly) |
| Interactive | No |
What it does
Executes one delegated internal, external, or hybrid RPI research lane and progressively writes owned evidence. Use for independent research threads.
When to use it
RPI Researcher is dispatched by rpi-research, not selected by a user. The parent delegates one bounded lane for one research cycle and wave (Wider, Deeper, or Contrarian) when isolating that investigation improves evidence quality, parallelism, or context control.
The worker investigates only that lane, writes its evidence progressively to the exact lane path the parent approved under .copilot-tracking/research/subagents/, and returns compact evidence relationships.
The parent keeps every decision: it assigns canonical C# and W# IDs, accepts or rejects material, records readiness, and talks to the user. The worker never edits the primary research artifact, source files, or configuration, and never speaks to the user.
rpi-research selects this subagent because its name contains research; when it is unavailable, the skill dispatches an unnamed general-purpose subagent with the same lane contract, or investigates inline and records the fallback.
Example usage
A representative parent dispatch supplies the cycle, wave, lane, and paths:
Cycle 1, wave Deeper, external lane.
Topic: azure-storage-blob async upload behavior for files over 1 GB.
Questions: Q2 chunk size and concurrency defaults; Q3 retry semantics on partial upload.
Criteria: current official documentation or SDK source with retrieval dates.
Posture: balanced. Limit: none.
Lane path: .copilot-tracking/research/subagents/2026-09-04/blob-async-upload-subagent-research.md
Primary artifact (do not edit): .copilot-tracking/research/2026-09-04/blob-storage-research.md
The worker returns a pointer summary rather than the evidence body:
* Execution status: Complete
* Cycle / wave: 1 / Deeper
* Evidence confidence: High
* Synthesis readiness: Ready
* Evidence artifact: .copilot-tracking/research/subagents/2026-09-04/blob-async-upload-subagent-research.md
* Evidence relationships: Q2 -> upload_blob chunks at max_block_size with max_concurrency workers (SDK reference, retrieved 2026-09-04) supports; Q3 -> partial uploads are not retried by default (SDK source) weakens the earlier claim
* Missing evidence or clarification: None
* Stop reason: lane criteria met