iterative-retrieval

What this skill does

When applied, it prepends a system prompt before your request is sent — no extra calls and no change to how you are billed beyond the added tokens.

---
name: iterative-retrieval
description: Pattern for progressively refining context retrieval to solve the subagent context problem
origin: ECC
---

# Iterative Retrieval Pattern

Solves the "context problem" in multi-agent workflows where subagents don't know what context they need until they start working.

## When to Activate

- Spawning subagents that need codebase context they cannot predict upfront
- Building multi-agent workflows where context is progressively refined
- Encountering "context too large" or "missing context" failures in agent tasks
- Designing RAG-like retrieval pipelines for code exploration
- Optimizing token usage in agent orchestration

## The Problem

Subagents are spawned with limited context. They don't know:
- Which files contain relevant code
- What patterns exist in the codebase
- What terminology the project uses

Standard approaches fail:
- **Send everything**: Exceeds context limits
- **Send nothing**: Agent lacks critical information
- **Guess what's needed**: Often wrong

## The Solution: Iterative Retrieval

A 4-phase loop that progressively refines context:

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                             │
│   ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────┐            │
│   │ DISPATCH │─────│ EVALUATE │            │
│   └──────────┘      └──────────┘            │
│        ▲                  │                 │
│        │                  ▼                 │
│   ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────┐            │
│   │   LOOP   │─────│  REFINE  │            │
│   └──────────┘      └──────────┘            │
│                                             │
│        Max 3 cycles, then proceed           │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

### Phase 1: DISPATCH

Initial broad query to gather candidate files:

```javascript
// Start with high-level intent
const initialQuery = {
  patterns: ['src/**/*.ts', 'lib/**/*.ts'],
  keywords: ['authentication', 'user', 'session'],
  excludes: ['*.te

Use this skill

{
  "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
  "skill": "imp-38d55c4a-9173-430b-8d98-169bb94f5f48",
  "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "…" }]
}

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