# ResearchLoop: An Evidence-Gated Control Plane for AI-Assisted Research

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.28282 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28282/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15793/) (2024)
- [The AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06292/) (2024)
- [Agent Laboratory: Using LLM Agents as Research Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.04227/) (2025)
- [The AI Scientist-v2: Workshop-Level Automated Scientific Discovery via Agentic Tree Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.08066/) (2025)
- [Accelerating scientific discovery with Co-Scientist](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18864/) (2025)
- [An AI system to help scientists write expert-level empirical software](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.06503/) (2025)
- [Autonomous LLM-driven research from data to human-verifiable research papers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17605/) (2024)
- [AIRS-Bench: a Suite of Tasks for Frontier AI Research Science Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06855/) (2026)
- [ARIS: Autonomous Research via Adversarial Multi-Agent Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.03042/) (2026)
- [PaperOrchestra: A Multi-Agent Framework for Automated AI Research Paper Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05018/) (2026)
- [DeepFact: Co-Evolving Benchmarks and Agents for Deep Research Factuality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05912/) (2026)
- [PARNESS: A Paper Harness for End-to-End Automated Scientific Research with Dynamic Workflows, Full-Text Indexing, and Cross-Run Knowledge Accumulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.05258/) (2026)
- [Can AI Validate Science? Benchmarking LLMs for Accurate Scientific Claim rightarrow Evidence Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.08235/) (2025)
- [Sibyl-AutoResearch: Autonomous Research Needs Self-Evolving Trial-and-Error Harnesses, Not Paper Generators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22343/) (2026)
- [Rethinking Artifact Evaluation for Software Engineering in the Age of Generative AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.16306/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Proof-or-Stop: Don't Trust the Agent, Trust the Evidence -- Loop Engineering for Verifiable Evidence-Gated Lifecycle Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.14890/) (2026)
- [Graph Engineering in the Era of LLM Agents: From Individual Intelligence to System Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21156/) (2026)
- [EvoCast: Reliable Autonomous Research Agents for Iterative Forecasting Architecture Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.04517/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

AI-assisted research compresses ideation, implementation, evaluation, and manuscript writing into a single interactive loop. This compression is useful, but it also creates a publication risk: paper claims can become easier to state than to audit. We present ResearchLoop, an evidence-gated control plane for AI-assisted computational research. ResearchLoop treats research questions, task contracts, evidence objects, claim ledgers, closeouts, and paper bindings as durable project state, realized here as a repository-backed runtime. This technical report provides the complete protocol specification, state model, transition rules, claim-admission algorithm, and insight-compounding mechanism. It also reports the full experimental record spanning nine versions (V0--V9), including a self-hosting case study, a controlled task-suite study with component ablations, a mathematical olympiad evaluation, and a supplementary SciCode boundary experiment evaluated with the official generated-code harness. All artifacts, manifests, and verification reports are preserved in the project repository.