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.
1.8 KiB
@deepseek-ai/dsh-subagent-fork
The in-process fork subagent backend: a SubagentProvider that runs each child as a child Agent seeded with a prefix of the parent's session log — so the child inherits the parent's conversation context instead of starting fresh. Shares the run driver (startInProcessRun) with dsh-subagent-spawn; the only difference is the seed.
The seed boundary (the crux)
At the moment a subagent tool's execute runs, the parent's CURRENT turn is open and unbalanced: the log holds the assistant/message carrying this spawn's tool-call and the dangling tool/call with no tool/result yet. Seeding that raw prefix would give the child an open turn that the session constructor and the dev-mode invariants replay reject.
So the fork seeds only the balanced completed-turn prefix — the parent's log up to and including its last turn/end, excluding the in-flight turn entirely (completedTurnPrefix). Because the live log keeps seq === index, the slice is contiguous-from-0 and a valid seed. A parent on its very first (not-yet-complete) turn forks an empty seed — i.e. effectively a fresh child.
The seam this rides on: CreateAgentOptions.seed (added on dsh-agent, threaded through AgentLoop.createAgent → ctx.sessions.prepare({ seed })), the same primitive resume uses.
Capabilities
{ outputSchema: false, depthLimit: true, toolFilter: false } — identical to spawn (the depth/model/output behavior is the shared driver's).
Config
| Key | Meaning |
|---|---|
providerName |
Registry name on ctx.subagents (default fork). |
See dsh-subagent-spawn for the run lifecycle, model inheritance, and depth tracking — all shared.