Tianyi Cui
7aabd2a3df
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.
core/ — product API spine
The packages every harness build is assembled from: the session log, the system-prompt assembly, the tool registry, the agent vocabulary, and the one concrete loop that drives them. These are product packages — the stable surface plugins and consumers build against.
| Package | Role | ctx key |
|---|---|---|
session/ |
Event-sourced session log + in-memory store | ctx.sessions |
system-prompt/ |
Prompt-section + tool-schema assembly registry | ctx.systemPrompt |
tools/ |
Tool registry + tools/execute waterfall |
ctx.tools |
agent/ |
Agent interface, registry, agent/* event vocabulary |
ctx.agents |
agent-loop/ |
The concrete loop plugin: ReactLoopAgent + the loop driver |
ctx.agentLoop |
agent-core/ |
Bundle plugin: the providerless/executor-less/UI-less spine as code | (loads the spine) |
agent-loop is the one concrete implementation of the agent seam and lives here because it is the harness's default product loop; everything else in core/ is interface/vocabulary. Plugins depend on the agent vocabulary, never on agent-loop directly, so the loop stays swappable.
agent-core is the composition counterpart: one bundle plugin that loads the whole providerless spine (timer + llm + sessions + system-prompt + tools + agents + invariants + tool-bash + agent-loop) and forwards agent-loop's agents list as its own config. App packages (ui/stdio-agent, ui/acp-agent) consume it and add only a front door; a leaf adds only the swappable backends. It lives in core/ because it composes exclusively core/ + interface packages and ships no provider, executor, or UI of its own.