# SimpleDeepSearcher: Deep Information Seeking via Web-Powered Reasoning Trajectory Synthesis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.16834 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16834/

## Key facts

- Cited by 55 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Knowledge- and tool-augmented reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 27 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 May 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Knowledge- and tool-augmented reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/knowledge-and-tool-augmented-reasoning/)
- Retrieval-augmented generation / [Agentic RAG, agents and memory](https://mlsanity.com/rag/agentic-rag-agents-and-memory/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [HotpotQA: A Dataset for Diverse, Explainable Multi-hop Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09600/) (2018)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10997/) (2023)
- [WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09332/) (2021)
- [Search-R1: Training LLMs to Reason and Leverage Search Engines with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09516/) (2025)
- [Constructing A Multi-hop QA Dataset for Comprehensive Evaluation of Reasoning Steps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01060/) (2020)
- [Measuring and Narrowing the Compositionality Gap in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03350/) (2022)
- [BrowseComp: A Simple Yet Challenging Benchmark for Browsing Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12516/) (2025)
- [Adaptive-RAG: Learning to Adapt Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models through Question Complexity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14403/) (2024)
- [Search-o1: Agentic Search-Enhanced Large Reasoning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05366/) (2025)
- [Measuring short-form factuality in large language models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04368/) (2024)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for AI-Generated Content: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.19473/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models with Iterative Retrieval-Generation Synergy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15294/) (2023)
- [R1-Searcher: Incentivizing the Search Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.05592/) (2025)
- [WebThinker: Empowering Large Reasoning Models with Deep Research Capability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.21776/) (2025)
- [DeepResearcher: Scaling Deep Research via Reinforcement Learning in Real-world Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.03160/) (2025)
- [MultiHop-RAG: Benchmarking Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Multi-Hop Queries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.15391/) (2024)
- [ZeroSearch: Incentivize the Search Capability of LLMs without Searching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.04588/) (2025)
- [Fact, Fetch, and Reason: A Unified Evaluation of Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12941/) (2024)
- [BrowseComp-ZH: Benchmarking Web Browsing Ability of Large Language Models in Chinese](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.19314/) (2025)
- [How Can We Accelerate Progress Towards Human-like Linguistic Generalization?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00955/) (2020)
- [MindSearch: Mimicking Human Minds Elicits Deep AI Searcher](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.20183/) (2024)
- [Atom of Thoughts for Markov LLM Test-Time Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12018/) (2025)
- [Chain-of-Retrieval Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.14342/) (2025)
- [Open Deep Search: Democratizing Search with Open-source Reasoning Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20201/) (2025)
- [Don't Blame the Annotator: Bias Already Starts in the Annotation Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.00415/) (2022)
- [Answering Open-Domain Questions of Varying Reasoning Steps from Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.12527/) (2020)
- [RAG-Star: Enhancing Deliberative Reasoning with Retrieval Augmented Verification and Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12881/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 55)

- [UI-TARS-2 Technical Report: Advancing GUI Agent with Multi-Turn Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.02544/) (2025)
- [The Landscape of Agentic Reinforcement Learning for LLMs: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.02547/) (2025)
- [WebDancer: Towards Autonomous Information Seeking Agency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22648/) (2025)
- [Agentic Reinforced Policy Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19849/) (2025)
- [Beyond Ten Turns: Unlocking Long-Horizon Agentic Search with Large-Scale Asynchronous RL](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07976/) (2025)
- [Deep Research Agents: A Systematic Examination And Roadmap](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18096/) (2025)
- [WebShaper: Agentically Data Synthesizing via Information-Seeking Formalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.15061/) (2025)
- [VerlTool: Towards Holistic Agentic Reinforcement Learning with Tool Use](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01055/) (2025)
- [Chain-of-Agents: End-to-End Agent Foundation Models via Multi-Agent Distillation and Agentic RL](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13167/) (2025)
- [Deep Research: A Survey of Autonomous Research Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.12752/) (2025)
- [DeepDive: Advancing Deep Search Agents with Knowledge Graphs and Multi-Turn RL](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.10446/) (2025)
- [Search Self-play: Pushing the Frontier of Agent Capability without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18821/) (2025)
- [Gen-Searcher: Reinforcing Agentic Search for Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.28767/) (2026)
- [Flash-Searcher: Fast and Effective Web Agents via DAG-Based Parallel Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25301/) (2025)
- [MemSearcher: Training LLMs to Reason, Search and Manage Memory via End-to-End Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.02805/) (2025)
- [Towards Effective Code-Integrated Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.24480/) (2025)
- [Terminal-World: Scaling Terminal-Agent Environments via Agent Skills](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20876/) (2026)
- [BrowserAgent: Building Web Agents with Human-Inspired Web Browsing Actions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10666/) (2025)
- [Open Data Synthesis For Deep Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00375/) (2025)
- [ClawGym: A Scalable Framework for Building Effective Claw Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.26904/) (2026)
- [ParallelMuse: Agentic Parallel Thinking for Deep Information Seeking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24698/) (2025)
- [Lost in the Maze: Overcoming Context Limitations in Long-Horizon Agentic Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18939/) (2025)
- [Repurposing Synthetic Data for Fine-grained Search Agent Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24694/) (2025)
- [Agentic-R: Learning to Retrieve for Agentic Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11888/) (2026)
- [Search-R2: Enhancing Search-Integrated Reasoning via Actor-Refiner Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03647/) (2026)
- [Towards Long-horizon Agentic Multimodal Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.12890/) (2026)
- [GrepSeek: Training Search Agents for Direct Corpus Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29307/) (2026)
- [Beyond Pipelines: A Survey of the Paradigm Shift toward Model-Native Agentic AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16720/) (2025)
- [LocalSearchBench: Benchmarking Agentic Search in Real-World Local Life Services](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07436/) (2025)
- [GRACE: Reinforcement Learning for Grounded Response and Abstention under Contextual Evidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04525/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems have advanced large language models (LLMs) in complex deep search scenarios requiring multi-step reasoning and iterative information retrieval. However, existing approaches face critical limitations that lack high-quality training trajectories or suffer from the distributional mismatches in simulated environments and prohibitive computational costs for real-world deployment. This paper introduces SimpleDeepSearcher, a lightweight yet effective framework that bridges this gap through strategic data engineering rather than complex training paradigms. Our approach synthesizes high-quality training data by simulating realistic user interactions in live web search environments, coupled with a multi-criteria curation strategy that optimizes the diversity and quality of input and output side. Experiments on five benchmarks across diverse domains demonstrate that SFT on only 871 curated samples yields significant improvements over RL-based baselines. Our work establishes SFT as a viable pathway by systematically addressing the data-scarce bottleneck, offering practical insights for efficient deep search systems. Our code is available at https://github.com/RUCAIBox/SimpleDeepSearcher.