Cognitive Kernel-Pro: A Framework for Deep Research Agents and Agent Foundation Models Training

TL;DR

Cognitive Kernel-Pro is an open-source framework for developing and evaluating advanced AI agents, focusing on high-quality training data, robustness, and achieving state-of-the-art results among free models.

Contribution

It introduces a fully open-source multi-module agent framework and explores novel training and evaluation strategies for agent foundation models.

Findings

Achieved state-of-the-art results among open-source agents

Surpassed previous models like WebDancer and WebSailor

Demonstrated the effectiveness of high-quality data curation and test-time strategies

Abstract

General AI Agents are increasingly recognized as foundational frameworks for the next generation of artificial intelligence, enabling complex reasoning, web interaction, coding, and autonomous research capabilities. However, current agent systems are either closed-source or heavily reliant on a variety of paid APIs and proprietary tools, limiting accessibility and reproducibility for the research community. In this work, we present \textbf{Cognitive Kernel-Pro}, a fully open-source and (to the maximum extent) free multi-module agent framework designed to democratize the development and evaluation of advanced AI agents. Within Cognitive Kernel-Pro, we systematically investigate the curation of high-quality training data for Agent Foundation Models, focusing on the construction of queries, trajectories, and verifiable answers across four key domains: web, file, code, and general reasoning. Furthermore, we explore novel strategies for agent test-time reflection and voting to enhance agent robustness and performance. We evaluate Cognitive Kernel-Pro on GAIA, achieving state-of-the-art results among open-source and free agents. Notably, our 8B-parameter open-source model surpasses previous leading systems such as WebDancer and WebSailor, establishing a new performance standard for accessible, high-capability AI agents. Code is available at https://github.com/Tencent/CognitiveKernel-Pro