A few weeks ago I shipped a research agent, but there were a few manual steps I kept finding myself doing after each report was updated. This past weekend I added two subagents to handle them.

Every report, the same three things: convert the inline [source: url] markers to clickable markdown links, check that every cited URL is still live, and verify each claim actually matches what the source says.

research-polish is mechanical: read the draft, rewrite citation markers, linkify the Sources section. research-verify reads the report with fresh context, fetches every URL, and checks whether each source actually supports the claim it's attached to. Flags DEAD, STALE, UNSUPPORTED, PARTIAL. Also audits confidence labels and timestamp conversions.

Key call: verify flags, never fixes. Auto-removing a claim on a weak judgment call would delete valid content when the verifier misreads a source. The human decides what to do.

Why split it into subagents instead of baking both passes into the research agent itself: the research agent has confirmation bias toward its own claims. Can't grade your own paper. A blank-slate reader catches what a self-review misses.

Both run in parallel after the draft lands, before the publish prompt. Next research report runs both passes automatically.