A network of agentic research specialists coordinated by a principal investigator agent. V1: web-search researcher MCP server + CLI shim.
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Jeff Smith ae48acd421 depth flag now drives constraint defaults (#30)
Previously the depth parameter (shallow/balanced/deep) was passed
only as a text hint inside the agent's user message, with no
mechanical effect on iterations, token budget, or source count.
The flag was effectively cosmetic — the LLM was expected to
"interpret" it.

Add DEPTH_PRESETS table and constraints_for_depth() helper in
researchers.web.models:

  shallow:  2 iters,  5,000 tokens,  5 sources
  balanced: 5 iters, 20,000 tokens, 10 sources  (= historical defaults)
  deep:     8 iters, 60,000 tokens, 20 sources

Wired through the stack:

- WebResearcher.research(): when constraints is None, builds from
  the depth preset instead of bare ResearchConstraints()
- MCP server `research` tool: max_iterations and token_budget now
  default to None; constraints are built via constraints_for_depth
  with explicit values overriding the preset
- CLI `ask` command: --max-iterations and --budget default to None;
  the CLI only forwards them to the MCP tool when set, so unset
  flags fall through to the depth preset

balanced is unchanged from the historical defaults so existing
callers see no behavior difference. Explicit --max-iterations /
--budget always win over the preset.

Tests cover each preset's values, balanced backward-compat,
unknown depth fallback, full override, and partial override.
116/116 tests passing. Live-verified: --depth shallow on a simple
question now caps at 2 iterations and stays under budget.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-04-08 16:27:38 -06:00
cli depth flag now drives constraint defaults (#30) 2026-04-08 16:27:38 -06:00
obs M2.5.2: Cost ledger with price table (#25) 2026-04-08 15:52:25 -06:00
orchestrator Initial project structure and scaffolding 2026-04-08 11:57:15 -06:00
researchers depth flag now drives constraint defaults (#30) 2026-04-08 16:27:38 -06:00
scripts Propagate parent env to MCP server subprocess (#18) 2026-04-08 15:31:14 -06:00
tests depth flag now drives constraint defaults (#30) 2026-04-08 16:27:38 -06:00
.dockerignore chore: add docker-based test environment (#13) 2026-04-08 15:06:12 -06:00
.gitignore Initial project structure and scaffolding 2026-04-08 11:57:15 -06:00
CLAUDE.md chore: add CLAUDE.md for session 1 2026-04-08 14:44:16 -06:00
CONTRIBUTING.md Initial project structure and scaffolding 2026-04-08 11:57:15 -06:00
Dockerfile M2.5.3: marchwarden costs CLI command (#26) 2026-04-08 15:57:39 -06:00
pyproject.toml M2.5.1: Structured application logger via structlog (#24) 2026-04-08 15:46:51 -06:00
README.md chore: add docker-based test environment (#13) 2026-04-08 15:06:12 -06:00

Marchwarden

A network of agentic research specialists coordinated by a principal investigator agent.

Marchwarden researchers are stationed at the frontier of knowledge — they watch, search, synthesize, and report back what they find. Each specialist is self-contained, fault-tolerant, and exposed via MCP. The PI agent orchestrates them to answer complex, multi-domain questions.

V1: Single web-search researcher + CLI shim for development.
V2+: Multiple specialists (arxiv, database, internal docs, etc.) + PI orchestrator.

Quick start

# Clone
git clone https://forgejo.labbity.unbiasedgeek.com/archeious/marchwarden.git
cd marchwarden

# Install
pip install -e .

# Ask a question
marchwarden ask "What are ideal crops for a garden in Utah?"

# Replay a research session
marchwarden replay <trace_id>

Docker test environment

A reproducible container is available for running the test suite and the CLI without depending on the host's Python install:

scripts/docker-test.sh build           # build the image
scripts/docker-test.sh test             # run pytest
scripts/docker-test.sh ask "question"   # run `marchwarden ask` end-to-end
                                        # (mounts ~/secrets ro and ~/.marchwarden rw)
scripts/docker-test.sh replay <id>      # replay a trace from ~/.marchwarden/traces
scripts/docker-test.sh shell            # interactive bash in the container

Documentation

Status

  • V1 scope: Issue #1
  • Branch: main (development)
  • Tests: pytest tests/

Stack

License

(TBD)