Deep Research V8.1

Deep Research V8.1

This skill is for evidence-rich research outputs, not for every question that happens to mention “analysis”.

The V8 shift is simple:

• Single-agent first. Start with one lead agent and only fan out when parallel work will clearly help.
• Thin harness, fat skill. Put reusable judgment and workflow here; keep deterministic checks in scripts.
• Context organization over prompt stuffing. Load the minimum active context bundle, then pull in references only when needed.
• Eval and observability built in. A good report is not enough; the run must also be diagnosable and improvable.

What this skill should produce

Choose the lightest artifact that satisfies the task.

If the user did not ask for a long report, default to Brief memo.

When NOT to use this skill

Do not activate for:

• quick fact lookups or simple definitions
• summarizing a single provided article/PDF/page
• short comparisons the model can answer directly from 1-2 sources
• brainstorming without evidence requirements
• tasks where the user explicitly wants a short answer, not a report

If in doubt, ask yourself: Does this task need a reusable evidence artifact and multi-source synthesis? If not, do something simpler.

Org-policy boundary

This skill does not replace system policies, enterprise guardrails, or repo-level instructions. Put these outside the skill:

• data handling / PII / compliance rules
• approval requirements for external access or irreversible actions
• org-wide style and review policy