Research and the Plan tab

Research mode turns a question into a plan you can read, change and approve before the agent opens a single page. This page shows how to run a research, steer its plan and read the report.

Start a research

Open a new tab. On the start page, choose Research.
Type your question and press Enter.
Island opens a new space named after your question. If a space with that name exists, Island reuses it.
The space opens with a Plan tab, pinned first.

You need an agent configured first. See The agent panel.

Read the plan

The Plan tab shows the agent's plan as steps, branches, a join and a result. Nothing runs yet; the header says Waiting for approval.

Switch between Graph view and List view with the view control. The graph can zoom in and out, and Tidy up the graph re-lays it out.
Click a step to open the Inspector. It shows the step, what it Runs after, and its status.
Branches have their own colors, so you can tell the lines of work apart.

Edit the plan before you approve it

Select a step, then use the Inspector:

Skip this step leaves it out. A skipped step shows "Skipped by you". Restore this step puts it back.
Instruction for this step lets you write guidance the agent follows for that step.
Branch from here (or Add a branch after a step) adds a new branch. A plan can branch up to 3 levels deep.
Ask agent to expand asks the agent to break that step into more steps.

Approve and run

At the top of the Plan tab, choose one:

Run plan runs every branch.
Run one branch only runs the selected branch (the button names it, such as Run A only).
Cancel research stops before anything runs.

As the agent works, the pages it opens appear as indented child tabs under the Plan tab, grouped by branch (for example under a "Branch A" label). Select a step in the plan to see its page. Pages open active, so you can watch.

Retry a failed step

If a step fails, select it and click Retry this step in the Inspector. You can retry while the run goes on or after it ends. You cannot retry while the plan waits for approval, or after you cancelled it before approving.

Stop or keep a research

To stop it, click Stop research.
If you close the Plan tab while research runs, Island asks whether to stop or Keep running. Esc keeps it running.
Deleting the space that holds the Plan tab stops the research.

Read the report

When the agent finishes, the final answer opens as a Report tab. It is grouped with the research in the sidebar. A report cites every claim.

In the report you can:

Copy Markdown.
Save as .md….
Continue in agent panel to ask follow-ups.

Island also saves each report in Settings > Agent & tools > Reports, and the command palette finds it as a REPORT row.

Things to know

Plan and Report tabs are not restored after a restart. Their pages come back as ordinary tabs, and the report stays in your Reports list.
The agent cannot approve or change the Plan tab. Its navigation and page tools refuse that tab.
A turn that proposes a plan and stops shows "Waiting for approval", not an error.
Research reads pages while its space is shown. If you switch to another space, the agent cannot read the research's pages that are not open yet. It reports those sources as unread instead of activating them. Switch back to the research space, or open its tabs, to let it read them; a later release will read them in the background.