fix: propagate child activity to parent during delegate_task#7295
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When delegate_task runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes because child.run_conversation() blocks and the child's own _touch_activity() never propagates back to the parent. The gateway inactivity timeout then fires a spurious 'No activity' warning and eventually kills the agent, even though the subagent is actively working. Fix: add a heartbeat thread in _run_single_child that calls parent._touch_activity() every 30 seconds with detail from the child's activity summary (current tool, iteration count). The thread is a daemon that starts before child.run_conversation() and is cleaned up in the finally block. This also improves the gateway 'Still working...' status messages — instead of just 'running: delegate_task', users now see what the subagent is actually doing (e.g., 'delegate_task: subagent running terminal (iteration 5/50)').
Tommyeds
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Apr 12, 2026
…earch#7295) When delegate_task runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes because child.run_conversation() blocks and the child's own _touch_activity() never propagates back to the parent. The gateway inactivity timeout then fires a spurious 'No activity' warning and eventually kills the agent, even though the subagent is actively working. Fix: add a heartbeat thread in _run_single_child that calls parent._touch_activity() every 30 seconds with detail from the child's activity summary (current tool, iteration count). The thread is a daemon that starts before child.run_conversation() and is cleaned up in the finally block. This also improves the gateway 'Still working...' status messages — instead of just 'running: delegate_task', users now see what the subagent is actually doing (e.g., 'delegate_task: subagent running terminal (iteration 5/50)').
ulasbilgen
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May 1, 2026
…earch#7295) When delegate_task runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes because child.run_conversation() blocks and the child's own _touch_activity() never propagates back to the parent. The gateway inactivity timeout then fires a spurious 'No activity' warning and eventually kills the agent, even though the subagent is actively working. Fix: add a heartbeat thread in _run_single_child that calls parent._touch_activity() every 30 seconds with detail from the child's activity summary (current tool, iteration count). The thread is a daemon that starts before child.run_conversation() and is cleaned up in the finally block. This also improves the gateway 'Still working...' status messages — instead of just 'running: delegate_task', users now see what the subagent is actually doing (e.g., 'delegate_task: subagent running terminal (iteration 5/50)').
02356abc
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that referenced
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May 14, 2026
…earch#7295) When delegate_task runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes because child.run_conversation() blocks and the child's own _touch_activity() never propagates back to the parent. The gateway inactivity timeout then fires a spurious 'No activity' warning and eventually kills the agent, even though the subagent is actively working. Fix: add a heartbeat thread in _run_single_child that calls parent._touch_activity() every 30 seconds with detail from the child's activity summary (current tool, iteration count). The thread is a daemon that starts before child.run_conversation() and is cleaned up in the finally block. This also improves the gateway 'Still working...' status messages — instead of just 'running: delegate_task', users now see what the subagent is actually doing (e.g., 'delegate_task: subagent running terminal (iteration 5/50)').
olympus-terminal
pushed a commit
to olympus-terminal/hermes-agent
that referenced
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May 16, 2026
…earch#7295) When delegate_task runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes because child.run_conversation() blocks and the child's own _touch_activity() never propagates back to the parent. The gateway inactivity timeout then fires a spurious 'No activity' warning and eventually kills the agent, even though the subagent is actively working. Fix: add a heartbeat thread in _run_single_child that calls parent._touch_activity() every 30 seconds with detail from the child's activity summary (current tool, iteration count). The thread is a daemon that starts before child.run_conversation() and is cleaned up in the finally block. This also improves the gateway 'Still working...' status messages — instead of just 'running: delegate_task', users now see what the subagent is actually doing (e.g., 'delegate_task: subagent running terminal (iteration 5/50)').
gweeteve
pushed a commit
to gweeteve/hermes-agent
that referenced
this pull request
Jun 2, 2026
…earch#7295) When delegate_task runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes because child.run_conversation() blocks and the child's own _touch_activity() never propagates back to the parent. The gateway inactivity timeout then fires a spurious 'No activity' warning and eventually kills the agent, even though the subagent is actively working. Fix: add a heartbeat thread in _run_single_child that calls parent._touch_activity() every 30 seconds with detail from the child's activity summary (current tool, iteration count). The thread is a daemon that starts before child.run_conversation() and is cleaned up in the finally block. This also improves the gateway 'Still working...' status messages — instead of just 'running: delegate_task', users now see what the subagent is actually doing (e.g., 'delegate_task: subagent running terminal (iteration 5/50)').
Egavasyug
pushed a commit
to Egavasyug/hermes-agent
that referenced
this pull request
Jun 10, 2026
…earch#7295) When delegate_task runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes because child.run_conversation() blocks and the child's own _touch_activity() never propagates back to the parent. The gateway inactivity timeout then fires a spurious 'No activity' warning and eventually kills the agent, even though the subagent is actively working. Fix: add a heartbeat thread in _run_single_child that calls parent._touch_activity() every 30 seconds with detail from the child's activity summary (current tool, iteration count). The thread is a daemon that starts before child.run_conversation() and is cleaned up in the finally block. This also improves the gateway 'Still working...' status messages — instead of just 'running: delegate_task', users now see what the subagent is actually doing (e.g., 'delegate_task: subagent running terminal (iteration 5/50)').
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Summary
Fixes the gateway inactivity timeout firing during
delegate_taskexecution. When a subagent runs, the parent agent's activity tracker freezes becausechild.run_conversation()blocks synchronously and the child's own_touch_activity()never propagates back to the parent. The gateway polls the parent'sseconds_since_activity, sees it growing, and fires a spurious 'No activity for 15 min' warning — eventually killing the agent at the 30-min timeout even though the subagent is actively working.Reported by community user Josh on Discord — running delegate_task from Telegram, getting inactivity warnings while subagent actively iterates.
Changes
tools/delegate_tool.py:_run_single_child()that callsparent._touch_activity()every 30 seconds (configurable via_HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL)get_activity_summary()and propagates rich detail: current tool, iteration count, last activity descriptionchild.run_conversation()and is stopped + joined in thefinallyblock (handles both success and error paths)_touch_activityonly sets two attributes (atomic under GIL)tests/tools/test_delegate.py:TestDelegateHeartbeat:last_activity_descwhen no tool is activeImpact
delegate_taskno longer get spurious inactivity warningsTest plan