Beyond the mechanical conflicts (provider capability lines vs master's new
inheritsParentContext field; generated catalogs regenerated rather than
hand-merged; knip/lockfile), three master-side reworks required semantic
adaptation of this branch:
- The persona rework removed AgentOptions.systemPrompt, which was the
structured-output instruction's channel. The instruction now rides the
SAME final-request enforcement listener that injects the schema'd tool:
appended per request to final.system (per-request wire state, not agent
prompt state). Tests assert the wire request (adapter.requests) instead
of child.options; the bare-direct-dispatch test pins the no-system arm.
- Tool guidance moved out of deployment prompts into per-tool prompt
sections; the examples' workflow paragraph became a tool:<toolName>
section contributed by dsh-tool-workflow (explicit-ask-only policy),
and both example personas resolve to master's minimal identity+behavior
form. tool-workflow gains inject: systemPrompt (+ peer dep, tsconfig
ref); the export-shape guard updated.
- The uniform-RFC-format gate: the dynamic-workflows RFC restructured to
the implemented/ skeleton (bare Status line; Proposal -> Decision;
What-was-rejected -> Alternatives considered; new Consequences), and
the overall-run-timeout deferral is now recorded in the RFC's Deferred
list. The doc-graphs atlas classification gains the workflows seam
(workflow-vm implementation, tool-workflow consumer).
Master's harness-identity section made "empty assembled prompt" states
unreachable through the loop, so the instruction-append is a plain
undefined-ternary and the structured tests assert append-not-replace.
All snapshot goldens (including workflow-run) replay unchanged. Full
local CI-equivalent gate sequence green on the merged tree.
The seam vocabulary (SubagentStartRequest.outputSchema, SubagentResult
.structured) existed but no in-process backend honored it — spawn/fork
advertised outputSchema: false. This lands the missing half:
- dsh-tools gains a structured-output JSON Schema subset (json-schema.ts):
StructuredOutputSchema, assertSupportedOutputSchema (rejects loud outside
the enforced subset, every violation listed), validateStructuredValue
(path-qualified issues, total). outputSchema's seam type becomes this raw
JSON-Schema subset instead of the author-facing SchemaSpec DSL — the schema
travels verbatim to the model as a forced tool's parameters.
- dsh-subagent-inprocess gains the shared structured runtime: one global
structured_output capture tool (placeholder parameters) + a prepend:true
agent/request listener doing FINAL-REQUEST enforcement (strip for plain
agents, per-run schema for structured children — survives downstream
request-replacing listeners) + an agent/turn-continuation veto that stops
a child's turn once captured (no wasted extra model step). Lifetime is
refcounted by backends (plugin lifetime) AND live runs (start→settle).
- startInProcessRun drives the capture: subset asserted before the child
exists, instruction appended to the child's system prompt, clean-finish
nudge loop (structuredNudgeRetries, backend Config, default 1), captured
value on result.structured; a clean finish without a capture settles
'error' (never a silent success with a missing field).
- spawn + fork flip outputSchema: true and inject 'tools'.
One principle: every fact in the assembled prompt has exactly one owner.
- dsh-system-prompt: merge-extensible AssembleContext on assemble();
a variable(name, provider) registry; {{name}} interpolation in
renderPrompt, strict (unknown/valueless/malformed references throw);
duplicate section and variable names rejected; assembly carries
resolved section text + variables through the assemble waterfall.
- dsh-agent declares AssembleContext.agent; dsh-agent-loop registers
the agent:persona section (order 0 - identity renders before tool
guidance) and the model/cwd variables, and drops its string join:
renderPrompt(assembly) IS the full prompt.
- Tool guidance moves to its owners: descriptions carry per-tool
semantics; sections only cross-call habits (tool:bash exit-code
habit at order 105; read's not-shell nudge). todo/subagent need no
section - their descriptions already carry the contract.
- SubagentProvider.inheritsParentContext (spawn/acp false, fork true);
dsh-tool-subagent derives truthful per-provider wording and resolves
the provider at load (backend must be listed first).
- Example personas shrink to identity + behavior with {{model}} (and
{{cwd}} in the ACP tree); the welcome banner stops enumerating tools.
RFC: docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-07-05-prompt-variables-and-tool-guidance-ownership.md
The shared run driver lived inside dsh-subagent-spawn, so the spawn package
carried fork-aware seeding logic and dsh-subagent-fork depended backward on
dsh-subagent-spawn — the two in-process backends were not independent.
Move the driver (startInProcessRun, depthOf, SubagentDepthError,
InProcessRunOptions) into a new pure-library package
@deepseek-ai/dsh-subagent-inprocess that registers nothing. spawn and fork now
both depend only on that driver and neither knows about the other; spawn no
longer re-exports it and fork no longer imports from spawn.
Also wire BOTH backends in examples/coding-agent/cordis.yml (config-only): load
dsh-subagent-spawn + dsh-subagent-fork + two dsh-tool-subagent instances with
distinct toolNames (subagent → spawn, subagent_fork → fork), demonstrating that
exposing multiple transports needs no code change.
The second PR of the subagent seam: the two in-process backends that run a
child agent on the same cordis context, reusing the agent factory's quiescent
AgentHandle teardown. Both register on ctx.subagents (PR1's named-provider
registry) and share one run driver.
- dsh-subagent-spawn: a FRESH child via ctx.agents.create — own session, the
parent's model by default (overridable), zero inherited conversation. Also
exports the shared in-process run driver (startInProcessRun): mint ids, stamp
cwd/parentSession-lineage/depth, drive the one-shot (send → whenIdle), read
the last assistant/message + turn/end reason, dispose to quiescence.
- dsh-subagent-fork: a child SEEDED with the parent's balanced completed-turn
prefix (the log up to and including its last turn/end), so the child inherits
context. The in-flight unbalanced turn is excluded — a raw seed would fail the
invariants replay. Proven: a regression test goes red if the boundary seeds
the open turn.
- Seam extension: CreateAgentOptions.seed, threaded through AgentLoop.createAgent
→ ctx.sessions.prepare({ seed }) (the primitive resume already used). This is
the fork-lineage path the TODO(sub-agents) markers anticipated.
- Depth: a merge-extensible AgentOptions.subagentDepth (0 top-level, parent+1 for
a child); the depthLimit capability refuses a spawn past request.maxDepth.
Tests: real-loop unit tests for both backends (mock MODEL only, real loop +
invariants), a multi-subagent test (one parent drives a fork AND a spawn child
then keeps working), and a with-key e2e (a real parent delegates via the
`subagent` tool to a real child that writes a file on disk — world-verified).
100% per-file coverage. The coding-agent demo wires the spawn backend + tool.
Snapshot coverage of nested agents is deferred to a stacked follow-up
(TODO(subagent-snapshots)): dsh-llm-replay is a single global positional cursor
that cannot route calls to a parent vs. a child on one context. Recorded in the
RFC's deferrals and a new AGENTS.md rule: designing a subsystem must design its
test infrastructure END TO END up front, verifying the snapshot/e2e harness can
express the new shape — a gap this plan hit.
Tianyi Cui