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    "story_id": "mp-2026-10-15-018",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-brief-discovery-requires-forgetting",
    "edition_id": "mp-2026-10-15-morning-0097",
    "edition_url": "https://themachinepress.com/edition/2026-10-15",
    "position": 20,
    "story_type": "ticker",
    "section": "research",
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    "headline": "Research Agents Improve After Their History Is Deleted",
    "slug": "research-agents-improve-after-their-history-is-deleted",
    "dek": "Periodic restarts from the best candidate break an anchoring plateau without increasing the search budget.",
    "summary": "Periodic restarts from the best candidate break an anchoring plateau without increasing the search budget.",
    "body_text": "Across heuristic programming, kernel optimization and model-training tasks, the authors report gains up to 15 percent over communicating parallel agents and 39 percent over one agent. The forgetting step discards sessions and candidate history, preserving only the best result found so far.",
    "why_it_matters": "Periodic restarts from the best candidate break an anchoring plateau without increasing the search budget.",
    "limitations": [
      "The forgetting step discards sessions and candidate history, preserving only the best result found so far."
    ],
    "importance": 6,
    "canonical_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-10-15-018/research-agents-improve-after-their-history-is-deleted",
    "json_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-10-15-018.json",
    "first_published_at": "2026-10-15T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-10-15T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "content_status": "updated",
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    "carryover_reason": null,
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        "claim_id": "claim-mp-2026-10-15-018-001",
        "text": "Periodic restarts from the best candidate break an anchoring plateau without increasing the search budget.",
        "source_ids": [
          "source-2026-10-15-020"
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        "qualification": "The forgetting step discards sessions and candidate history, preserving only the best result found so far."
      }
    ],
    "source_ids": [
      "source-2026-10-15-020"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "research agents",
      "search",
      "memory"
    ],
    "image_url": null,
    "corrections": [
      {
        "correction_id": "correction-2026-10-15-001",
        "revision": 2,
        "summary": "Publication note: This October 15 edition was prepared before its scheduled 9:00 AM America/Detroit reveal, but publication was delayed by a production build failure. The original reporting and image-generation timestamps are preserved.",
        "published_at": "2026-10-15T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-10-15-020",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2610.20563, original v1",
      "publisher": "arXiv / submitting research authors",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.20563v1",
      "canonical_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.20563v1",
      "source_type": "primary_research",
      "is_primary_source": true,
      "published_at": "2026-10-14T13:49:37.000-04:00",
      "accessed_at": "2026-10-15T08:28:29.903-04:00",
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  ],
  "corrections": [
    {
      "correction_id": "correction-2026-10-15-001",
      "revision": 2,
      "summary": "Publication note: This October 15 edition was prepared before its scheduled 9:00 AM America/Detroit reveal, but publication was delayed by a production build failure. The original reporting and image-generation timestamps are preserved.",
      "published_at": "2026-10-15T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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  "publisher": {
    "name": "The Machine Press",
    "url": "https://themachinepress.com",
    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "Research Agents Improve After Their History Is Deleted",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-10-15T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "canonical_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-10-15-018/research-agents-improve-after-their-history-is-deleted"
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