VidbyteHarness documentation
CapabilitiesPersistent threadsPricingAPI reference

A research portfolio, not a one-shot answer

Research Harness

The Research harness is Vidbyte's hosted deep-research service. You start a run from the terminal with vidbyte-cli research start "<question>" or the REST API; Vidbyte's servers find papers and web sources, read the ones selected, and save one cited artifact per source in a persistent thread you can extend later. Runs are paid from your prepaid Vidbyte API balance: packs start at $29 (about 90 Research Summaries), a run needs $5.00 spendable to start, and each run stops at a spending cap ($5 by default).

View capabilities

Evidence

Source-scoped

Every finished artifact is tied to a specific retrieved source and its provenance.

Continuity

Persistent threads

Follow-up prompts build on durable source identity without bloating the model context.

Control

Capped per run

Each run has a cap that limits what it is charged, including the run fee and margin, and work finished before the cap stays saved.

Section 1

From question to durable evidence

Research separates provisional search results from evidence you can inspect. The discovery agent chooses from numbered search results, selected sources are retrieved and validated, and extraction creates one structured artifact per source that succeeds.

Research lifecycle

Ask a question
  ↓
Discover papers and web sources
  ↓
Select candidates explicitly
  ↓
Retrieve and validate public content
  ↓
Extract a source-grounded artifact
  ↓
Persist it in the thread for later work

Section 2

Why this is different from “research this”

  • The result is a collection of inspectable source artifacts, not one unsupported synthesis paragraph.
  • Threads and artifacts persist across runs, while the model sees only a bounded ledger and explicit references.
  • Each source can fail independently; completed artifacts survive provider failures, restart, or credit exhaustion.
  • Discovery, retrieval, extraction, usage authorization, and persistence have separate durable boundaries.
  • Persistent Researcher is the agent name for the Vidbyte Research harness; both names mean this hosted service.
  • It is not the /research learning skill. The free /research skill in Vidbyte Learning Skills (github.com/cerredz/Vidbyte-Skills) runs inside your coding agent and calls no Vidbyte service; the Research harness runs on Vidbyte's servers and saves its artifacts to your account.