# Multi-Turn Agentic Scientific Literature Search via Workflow Induction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.00597 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.00597/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Web, search, and research agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 14 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Jul 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Web, search, and research agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/web-search-and-research-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04761/) (2023)
- [The AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06292/) (2024)
- [DSPy: Compiling Declarative Language Model Calls into Self-Improving Pipelines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03714/) (2023)
- [Language agents achieve superhuman synthesis of scientific knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.13740/) (2024)
- [PaSa: An LLM Agent for Comprehensive Academic Paper Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.10120/) (2025)
- [LitLLM: A Toolkit for Scientific Literature Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01788/) (2024)
- [METAL: A Multi-Agent Framework for Chart Generation with Test-Time Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17651/) (2025)
- [ChatCite: LLM Agent with Human Workflow Guidance for Comparative Literature Summary](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02574/) (2024)
- [CLARINET: Augmenting Language Models to Ask Clarification Questions for Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15784/) (2024)
- [SPAR: Scholar Paper Retrieval with LLM-based Agents for Enhanced Academic Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.15245/) (2025)
- [AdaPlanBench: Evaluating Adaptive Planning in Large Language Model Agents under World and User Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05622/) (2026)
- [EchoFoley: Event-Centric Hierarchical Control for Video Grounded Creative Sound Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.24731/) (2025)
- [PEARL: Self-Evolving Assistant for Time Management with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11957/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Efficiently Linking Unstructured Data for Multi-step Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19491/) (2026)
- [Inspire: Benchmarking Scientific Literature Search for Open Research Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33233/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Scientific literature search often requires more than retrieving papers from a single query: users' intents are underspecified, preference-dependent, and evolve through interaction. Existing search agents typically rely on fixed pipelines or implicit language-only reasoning, making their search strategies difficult to control, inspect, and refine. We introduce PaperPilot, a multi-turn literature search agent that frames scientific search as workflow induction. Given an anchor paper and a user query, PaperPilot constructs an executable DAG of paper-search operators, including keyword search, citation expansion, filtering, scoring, reranking, and evidence extraction. User feedback is then used to refine both the query and the workflow itself. We train PaperPilot with supervised workflow imitation and preference optimization over controlled workflow corruptions. Experiments show that PaperPilot-9B improves over the base Qwen3.5-9B toolset agent under multi-turn interaction, increasing Hit@5 from 58.0 to 77.0, MRR from 47.5 to 59.4, and nDCG@10 from 26.8 to 32.5, while reducing workflow execution errors from 9.5% to 0%. These results show that explicit, editable search workflows provide an effective and controllable interface for aligning literature search agents with complex scientific intent.