Per-task `output_schema` (JSON Schema object) on task items plus the
top-level single-goal form — a one-time static addition to the tool
schema (never varies per call).
- Child side: the schema is appended to the child's context as an
explicit OUTPUT CONTRACT block before spawn.
- Completion side: the parent validates the child's final answer with
jsonschema; on failure it sends exactly ONE bounded retry turn
carrying the validation errors verbatim (no schema re-paste).
- Result entries gain schema_valid (+ schema_retries, and schema_errors
on final failure) ONLY when a schema was requested; schema-less calls
keep a byte-identical result shape.
- Malformed schemas are rejected loudly at dispatch (coerce_output_schema
meta-validates via jsonschema's validator_for/check_schema).
- New helpers in tools/delegation_output_schema.py: coerce, contract
block, fence/prose-tolerant extraction+validation, retry message.
Pattern from: github/copilot-cli ctx.agent(prompt,{schema}) — PATTERN
ONLY, zero code/prompt text copied (proprietary); proven consumer:
delegate-task-output-patterns skill.
Tests: tests/tools/test_delegate_output_schema.py (24 tests — valid
first try, invalid->retry->valid, invalid twice -> schema_valid false +
errors surfaced, retry-exception degrade, no-schema legacy shape pin,
dispatch rejection, contract plumbing). Delegation suite: 221/221 green.
Each serialized result entry now carries cost_usd (rounded to 6 dp)
and cost_status (the child's session_cost_status — 'estimated',
'reported', 'included', or 'unknown') alongside tokens/api_calls/
duration, so the parent model can see what each delegation cost.
The internal _child_cost_usd field is still stripped before
serialization and the parent session cost rollup is untouched.
Tool schema is unchanged (byte-stable).
Inspired by: Perplexity Agent API result shape (idea-level)
Reject malformed tasks=[...] batches before any child agent is spawned:
- exact-duplicate goals (case/whitespace-normalized), error names both
task indices
- placeholder goals: bare 'TODO', bare 'task N', unexpanded <...> or
{...} template markers, or goals shorter than 10 chars after strip
- 1-task batches, with an error pointing the model at the single
`goal` form instead
All checks are batch-only — the single-goal form is exempt by design
(short goals like goal="test" are valid there). Error strings are
actionable: each tells the model exactly how to fix the call.
Tool schema is unchanged (byte-stable); validation is runtime-only in
the existing batch-validation region.
Existing tests using terse batch goals ("A"/"B"/"C") updated to
realistic distinct goals per the new contract.
Inspired by: MoonshotAI/kimi-code agent-swarm.md validation rules (MIT)
The turn finalizer already hands back steer text that queued after the
final tool batch — result["pending_steer"], with the comment "hand it
back to the caller so it can be delivered as the next user turn instead
of being silently lost." Every interactive surface honors that contract
(cli.py, gateway/run.py, tui_gateway/server.py all requeue it). The
delegation layer doesn't: _run_single_child never reads it, so a steer
queued into a delegated child that finishes first vanishes with no trace
in the completion entry. There is also no sanctioned sender: the registry
has interrupt_subagent() but no redirection-side mirror, and session.steer
cannot reach children (lazy watch sessions have agent=None, so it 4010s).
Complete the contract for delegated children — both halves:
- steer_subagent(subagent_id, text): redirection-side mirror of
interrupt_subagent(). Resolves the live child in _active_subagents and
queues text via AIAgent.steer(). True means queued, not delivered.
- missed_steer retention: when the child's result carries pending_steer,
_run_single_child names it on the completion entry (missed_steer field
plus a summary note) so the parent can re-issue the guidance instead of
trusting it landed. This is what makes adding a sender safe: without it
the finish-before-drain race silently loses the text — the exact loss
the finalizer contract exists to prevent.
- subagent.steer gateway RPC beside subagent.interrupt so programmatic
hosts (dashboard, voice layers, ACP bridges) get an in-tree caller;
catalogued in programmatic-integration.md.
- docs: "Steering a Running Subagent" section in delegation.md covering
the queued-vs-delivered semantics.
Tests: registry-level steer coverage (delivery, unknown id, empty text,
dead record, raising agent), the finish-before-drain race retaining
missed_steer, and the RPC contract (4000/4002 validation, queued and
rejected envelopes).
Top-level delegate_task runs in the background, and the 450s progress-stall
monitor only sees api_call_count / tool / last_activity_ts. Subagents use
non-streaming direct_api_call, which previously touched activity once and then
went silent — so a healthy local GGUF / long-prefill wait looked frozen and
was interrupted around ~450s as "Operation interrupted: waiting for model
response", even when child_timeout_seconds was raised. Refresh activity while
the inline request is open, and treat last_activity_ts advances as sync
heartbeat progress too.
Round-2 A/B (gpt-4o-mini, 6 reps) showed two passages could not survive
paraphrase: the DO-NOT-USE list needs the arrow-list shape with the
'no reasoning needed' qualifier (prose form regressed mechanical-work
routing 6/6->1/6), and the self-report rule needs the concrete
'claiming uploaded successfully may be wrong' framing (without it,
side-effect verification regressed 6/6->2/6). With both restored:
30/42 vs 30/42 on gpt-4o-mini and intent-parity on claude-haiku-4.5.
Final size: 1,900 chars (from 3,963).
The top-level delegate_task description repeated content the model already
receives through parameter descriptions: the concurrency limit (tasks param),
the full nesting clause (role param), context-passing guidance (goal/context
params), and background semantics (background param). Every API call paid for
the duplication (~4,000 chars).
The description now carries only what exists nowhere else in the schema:
use/don't-use routing (execute_code, cronjob), the no-poll rule, the
non-durability warning, the self-report verification contract with concrete
verbs, the language-passing example, the leaf blocked-tool list, and model
inheritance. 3,963 -> 1,704 chars (~570 tokens saved per API call), and the
top-level text is now static (dynamic limits flow only through the two param
descriptions, which are already rebuilt per get_definitions() call).
A/B benchmark across 4 models (gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini, claude-haiku-4.5,
llama-3.3-70b) showed the naive compaction in PR #72813 regressed weaker
models on exactly the passages it cut (side-effect verification 8/8->0/8 on
gpt-4o-mini; language passing 3/3->0/3 on haiku-4.5). This version keeps
those benchmark-sensitive hooks verbatim.
Tests pin the contracts at keyword level (not prose-literal) plus a size
ceiling, and verify dynamic limits still reach the model via the tasks/role
param descriptions.
Refs #72737, supersedes the delegate_task half of PR #72813.
Makes interrupt-protected context compression cancellable by an explicit
user or lifecycle stop, without weakening protection against ordinary
incoming messages, voice interjections, or active-turn redirects.
Separates explicit hard cancellation from ordinary interrupt/redirect
state with a dedicated threading.Event; introduces
AuxiliaryExplicitCancellation as an attempt-local frozen-cause signal;
isolates the synchronous provider callback in a bounded daemon worker
during protected compression; atomically linearizes Codex timeout
cleanup against explicit cancellation; propagates hard cancellation
through child agents and explicit stop surfaces; serializes hard-cancel
admission against compression commit admission with
CompressionCommitFence; aborts before session rotation or late DB commit,
restores in-place transcript mutations and compressor state, and releases
the heartbeat and compression lease.
Based on #74449 by @suparious. Resolved merge conflicts in
agent/context_compressor.py (feasibility check + try/except) and
tui_gateway/methods_session.py.
AIAgent.__init__ calls set_current_session_id(self.session_id), which
mutated both the task-local ContextVar and the process-global os.environ.
Because _build_child_agent wraps construction in delegated_child_context(),
the ContextVar write is harmless (task-local), but the os.environ write
clobbered the parent's HERMES_SESSION_ID for the rest of the process —
leaking the child id into parent tools and subprocesses spawned after
the child was built.
Root cause of HermesPRDelegationSessionContext: parent
20260729_212118_5d797e dispatched child 20260730_160515_736ea1; later
parent terminal inherited HERMES_SESSION_ID=the child.
Fix: set_current_session_id() skips the process-global os.environ write
when called from within a delegated_child_context(). The child's own
tools and subprocesses still resolve their id through the ContextVar
(task-local), while the parent's process-wide env keeps the parent's
session identity. Root agents (CLI, gateway, cron) retain both paths.
Adds 7 regression tests covering single child, concurrent children (8
parallel), parent-tool observation after construction, and root-agent
session rotation backward compatibility. All pass; ruff clean.
Detached background delegation batches (_batch_runner) no longer honor
the foreground parent's interrupt flag — a busy-submit interrupt in the
TUI/desktop previously fabricated 'interrupted' results for background
children that should outlive the turn. Explicit cancellation still works
via _batch_interrupt.
Rebased onto current main from PR #65040; both interrupt-suppression
regression tests aligned with the current _session test helper.
Original work by @AtakanGs in #65040.
Root cause: delegate_task children run through three nested daemon-thread
layers (async-delegation executor -> per-child timeout executor -> the
interrupt worker interruptible_api_call spawns). After multi-day gateway
uptime the deepest layer wedges BEFORE the socket opens — the same
fingerprint as the gateway-cron hang (#62151): zero stale-detector output
(the worker never reaches dispatch), all providers, foreground/restart
works. The cron fix (should_use_direct_api_call) explicitly excluded
delegation 'for lack of evidence' — #60203 is that evidence.
- should_use_direct_api_call: extend the inline gate to delegated
children, detected via the delegation ContextVar set by
_run_single_child (platform='subagent' stamp as fallback). Scope
unchanged otherwise: chat_completions wire only; Codex/Anthropic/
Bedrock/MoA keep their established workers. Interrupts still work —
the inline path registers _active_request_abort, which interrupt()
invokes cross-thread (same mechanism the #72227 stall monitor uses).
- _dump_subagent_timeout_diagnostic: dump ALL thread stacks (bounded,
40), not just the conversation worker — a pre-HTTP wedge is
indistinguishable from a slow provider without seeing where the
nested helper threads sit.
Add timeout_seconds, timed_out_after_seconds, and timeout_phase to timeout
results so parent agents and users can distinguish timeouts before the
first LLM call from timeouts after one or more API calls.
Also attach diagnostic_path to the N>0 API-call timeout error message,
matching the existing zero-API-call timeout path.
Addresses part of #51690 and #17308.
Include last_activity_ts in the progress token sampled from each child.
_touch_activity ticks on every streamed chunk ('receiving stream
response'), every tool transition, and API-call start/completion — so a
child mid-stream on a long response is alive even though api_call_count
only advances when the call completes. Same liveness signal as the
compaction inactivity budget (PR #71508): if tokens are flowing it never
dies; staleness is measured from the last streamed token / tool activity
/ API call.
Replace the wall-clock timeout watchdog (from #60234) with progress-based
staleness detection, on by default with zero config:
- The async registry now accepts a progress_fn per dispatch; delegate_task
wires a sampler over the batch's child agents (api_call_count +
current_tool from get_activity_summary()).
- A single monitor thread sweeps running delegations: a child whose
progress token keeps advancing is never touched, no matter how long it
runs. A frozen token past the stale threshold (450s idle / 1200s
in-tool, mirroring the sync-path heartbeat monitor) marks the record
'stalling' and interrupts the child.
- A stalling child that unwinds within the grace window (120s) finalizes
through the NORMAL path, preserving its partial results. One that never
returns is force-finalized with a terminal 'stalled' completion event so
the owning session hears an outcome and the async slot frees.
- Late runner returns after force-finalization are deduped by the
begin/push/finish finalization split (kept from #60234).
Why not a timeout: delegation.child_timeout_seconds defaults to 0 by
deliberate design (DEFAULT_CHILD_TIMEOUT rationale) — a timeout-based
watchdog never arms for default configs, leaving the reported silent-
profile symptom (#60203) unfixed, and when armed it kills legitimately
slow heavy subagents mid-task. Progress detection distinguishes 'wedged
at first API call' from 'grinding through a 2h review'.
Builds on izumi0uu's finalization-atomicity work from #60234.
Async background delegation can leave gateway sessions holding only a dispatched handle when the detached runner wedges before it can return and enqueue a completion. Enforce the configured child timeout in the async registry so the parent observes a terminal timeout event and the async slot is released.
Constraint: Issue #60203 reports long-lived gateway processes with background child delegates that never produce completion events despite child_timeout_seconds being configured.
Rejected: Relying only on _run_single_child timeout handling | it cannot finalize the async registry when the outer runner thread itself never reaches normal completion.
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: narrow
Directive: Keep background delegation completion owned by the async registry whenever detached workers can outlive the caller's immediate control.
Tested: .venv/bin/python -m pytest tests/tools/test_async_delegation.py tests/tools/test_delegate_subagent_timeout_diagnostic.py tests/tools/test_delegate.py -q
Tested: .venv/bin/python -m ruff check tools/async_delegation.py tools/delegate_tool.py tests/tools/test_async_delegation.py
Tested: git diff --check
Not-tested: Multi-day real gateway degradation; covered with deterministic stuck-runner registry tests.
Wake-ups for kanban notifications and background delegation completions were
injected via handle_message() using a build_session_key()-derived key, which
can never match the raw X-Hermes-Session-Id key that api_server sessions run
under — so the wake landed in a session nobody was reading. On top of that,
ApiServerAdapter.send() reports failure without raising, and that was treated
as a successful delivery, so the notify cursor advanced past events that were
permanently lost; and background delegation was forced synchronous on
api_server since there was no way to wake the session afterward.
Fix: route wake-ups for non-push adapters through a self-post to
/v1/chat/completions with the original session id, treat non-raising send
failures as failures (rewind instead of advancing the cursor), and re-enable
background delegation whenever a session id is available to wake.
The origin session id is captured from the request-scoped api_server chat_id
binding rather than HERMES_SESSION_ID: constructing a child agent calls
set_current_session_id() with the subagent's internal id, clobbering that
variable right before dispatch would read it and misrouting the wake into
the subagent's own session.
Related: #56580, #64609, #53027, #63169, #56531, #50319, #64113
Dispatcher-spawned Kanban workers are finite one-shot processes, so detached delegation completions can outlive their only consumer. Mark that runtime as unable to deliver async completions and reuse the synchronous delegation fallback, returning required child results before the worker exits.\n\nAlso make unsupported-session notes runtime-generic and cover the delayed-child lifecycle regression.\n\nRefs #63169
Children inherit the parent's env, repo, and toolsets but were denied
execute_code ('children should reason step-by-step, not write scripts').
That forces subagents doing mechanical multi-step work (batch file
reads, fetch-N-pages loops, filter-before-context reductions) to burn
reasoning iterations one tool call at a time.
- Remove execute_code from DELEGATE_BLOCKED_TOOLS
- Stop stripping the code_execution toolset from child bundles
- No recursion risk: the sandbox bridges only the 7 SANDBOX_ALLOWED_TOOLS
(web/file/terminal) — delegate_task and execute_code itself are not
reachable from inside a sandbox script
- Update schema text, AGENTS.md, and delegation docs
- Tests: blocked-constant, strip, and child-assembly tests updated;
new test pins execute_code as intentionally unblocked
* feat(delegation): live-viewable subagent transcripts for delegate_task
Each child now streams an append-only, human-readable log to
<hermes_home>/cache/delegation/live/<delegation_id>/task-<n>.log while it
runs, and the dispatch return includes the paths so the caller can tail
them immediately instead of waiting blind for the consolidated summary.
- New tools/delegation_live_log.py: LiveTranscriptWriter (per-event append
+ flush, one-line rendering with truncation, never raises into the agent
loop), wrap_progress_callback (tees the child's existing
tool_progress_callback events into the log, preserves the _flush
contract), dispatch-time creation with pre-headered files so tail -f
attaches immediately, manifest.json (goals/task count/per-task status),
and 7-day retention pruning on new dispatches.
- delegate_task: wraps each child's progress callback with the writer;
sync results and background dispatch responses gain live_transcripts
(+ hint field on dispatch); per-task result entries carry
live_transcript; transcripts finalized with exit-reason markers.
- async_delegation: dispatch_async_delegation_batch accepts an optional
delegation_id so the live/ dir name matches the returned handle; the
completion event carries live_transcripts.
- process_registry: consolidated batch-completion block references each
task's live transcript path.
- Tool schema description documents the live_transcripts return surface;
docs gain a 'Live Transcripts' section with a tail -f example.
Placement under cache/delegation means the logs are mounted read-only
into remote terminal backends for free. Side-channel only: zero changes
to message content, so prompt caching is unaffected. Transcript-OUT only
— no overlap with the subagent control surfaces of PR #66046.
* fix(delegation): label the kickoff transcript line as user — it is the child's one user message
A leaf subagent is meant to be denied delegate_task, execute_code, memory,
clarify, cronjob, and send_message. _strip_blocked_tools() only drops a
toolset when EVERY tool in it is blocked, so mixed platform bundles
(hermes-cli, hermes-telegram, and every other gateway bundle) survived
stripping and re-exposed the blocked tools after composite expansion. A
leaf child spawned from any gateway platform could recursively delegate,
run code, and write memory.
Pass exact one-tool deny toolsets into the child's disabled_toolsets so
model_tools subtracts the blocked names AFTER composite expansion, and the
restriction survives later registry/MCP refreshes. Orchestrators regain
only delegate_task.
Salvaged from #66036 by Mason Tanguay (@DictatorBacon); scoped to the
authority fix + its regressions (docs/interrupt changes dropped).
Co-authored-by: Teknium <127238744+teknium1@users.noreply.github.com>
run_agent._dispatch_delegate_task forces background=True for every top-level
delegation, and async_delivery_supported() returns True for any session that
never binds the capability. On runners that cannot receive a completion after
their turn ends, that combination silently discards every subagent result: the
model gets a dispatch handle, ends its turn, and reports 'waiting for results'.
Two such runners never bind the capability:
* hermes -z (one-shot) prints one final response and exits. It bypasses cli.py,
so nothing drains process_registry.completion_queue (only the interactive
process_loop and the gateway watchers do).
* cron run_job clears the HERMES_SESSION_* routing keys, so a completion event
carries session_key="" — _enrich_async_delegation_routing cannot resolve it
and _inject_watch_notification drops it ("no routing metadata"). By then
run_job has already shipped the job's final response via _deliver_result;
there is no turn left to re-enter. Worse, get_current_session_key() can fall
back to the ambient os.environ HERMES_SESSION_KEY, so a cron subagent's output
can be routed into an unrelated user chat rather than merely dropped.
Add declare_stateless_channel() and bind it in both runners, routing
delegate_task to its existing inline/synchronous path — the same fallback the
stateless HTTP adapter already relies on, and the fix suggested in #63142. The
helper binds only the capability: set_session_vars() would also latch
_session_context_engaged, which a pure single-process one-shot must not trigger.
Also correct two agent-facing strings that hardcoded 'stateless HTTP API' as the
only channel without async delivery (delegate_tool, terminal_tool); they now name
the actual condition.
Repro (before): hermes -z 'Use delegate_task to spawn a subagent that replies
BANANA. Report its reply.' -> "Waiting for the subagent's response...", exit 0,
no BANANA. After: BANANA is returned in-turn.
Fixes#53027Fixes#63142
Two internal comments in delegate_tool.py still described the superseded
"N independent handles, no combined wait" model, contradicting the
authoritative batch contract (one async unit, one consolidated result
when all children finish). Aligns the comments with the runtime path in
_execute_and_aggregate / dispatch_async_delegation_batch.
Flips the read side of the cwd rearchitecture onto the _session_cwd
store introduced in the previous commit.
_authoritative_workspace_root now resolves:
1. the session's own cwd record (get_session_cwd) — per-session by
construction, so one session's cd can never leak into another
session's file resolution, with no ownership heuristics at all
2. registered override (fallback for cleared/never-written records)
3. legacy shared-env live cwd + preserved anchor (transition-only,
for commands that ran before this code loaded)
4. sentinel-free absolute TERMINAL_CWD
delegate_task children get their record seeded from the parent's at
spawn: they keep starting in the parent's directory (current behavior)
but their subsequent cds stay isolated in their own record instead of
bleeding back through the shared env.
The wrong-worktree leak class is now solved structurally on this path —
there is no shared cwd for sessions to inherit. The legacy env-side
tracking (cwd_owner, _live_cwd_if_owned, _last_known_cwd) remains only
as a transition fallback and is deleted in the next step.
Three-layer companion to the salvaged CLI drain-ownership fix (#64240):
1. restore_undelivered_completions stamps restored=True (in-memory only)
on every durable completion re-enqueued at process start.
2. drain_notifications' legacy unfiltered branch re-queues restored
events instead of consuming them — a fresh process can no longer
adopt a dead session's delegation results (#64484). Same-process
keyless events keep the legacy behavior.
3. delegate_tool's async dispatch now falls back to the parent agent's
durable session_id when the approval-context key resolves empty (the
CLI case), so the CLI's new positive-ownership drain can actually
claim its own completions instead of failing closed on ''.
Background delegate_task completions only carried session_key. When multiple
active sessions shared a routing peer, get_or_create_session could recover the
latest ended_at IS NULL row and inject the subagent result into the wrong
session.
Capture parent_agent.session_id at dispatch time, include it on async-delegation
completion events, and pin gateway routing via switch_session when the
synthetic completion message is handled.
Fixes#57498
Carry the live TUI session id with async delegation completion events and prefer the commissioning UI session when desktop pollers share the completion queue. Resolve compressed session keys to their continuation before treating events as orphaned, and capture the live parent agent session id for TUI/ACP dispatch.
Teknium
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