subagent: tell the child its iter budget, warn near the cap#493
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The child loop's tool-iter cap was enforced from the outside only; the subagent's system prompt never said "you have N tool calls", and the child had no way to know which iteration it was on. The visible failure mode was an explore subagent burning all 20 iters mapping the territory, then hitting the cap mid-thought and emitting a partial summary the parent had to re-dispatch from. Two pieces: 1. spawnSubagent now appends a one-paragraph budget notice to the child's system prompt — literal "Tool budget: you have N tool calls" with the resolved cap baked in. Applies to default, typed (explore/verify), and caller-supplied system prompts uniformly. 2. ToolRegistry gains setResultAugmenter(), a final-stage post-hook on dispatch. spawnSubagent installs one that counts dispatches and appends "[budget: K of N tool calls left — wrap up soon]" once the child is within 3 iters of the cap, escalating to "0 left — finalize NOW" on the last call. Static prompt + dynamic countdown together: prompt sets expectation, countdown forces reckoning when the budget is actually tight. Closes #488
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May 23, 2026
…engine#493) The child loop's tool-iter cap was enforced from the outside only; the subagent's system prompt never said "you have N tool calls", and the child had no way to know which iteration it was on. The visible failure mode was an explore subagent burning all 20 iters mapping the territory, then hitting the cap mid-thought and emitting a partial summary the parent had to re-dispatch from. Two pieces: 1. spawnSubagent now appends a one-paragraph budget notice to the child's system prompt — literal "Tool budget: you have N tool calls" with the resolved cap baked in. Applies to default, typed (explore/verify), and caller-supplied system prompts uniformly. 2. ToolRegistry gains setResultAugmenter(), a final-stage post-hook on dispatch. spawnSubagent installs one that counts dispatches and appends "[budget: K of N tool calls left — wrap up soon]" once the child is within 3 iters of the cap, escalating to "0 left — finalize NOW" on the last call. Static prompt + dynamic countdown together: prompt sets expectation, countdown forces reckoning when the budget is actually tight. Closes esengine#488
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Summary
Subagents had no visibility into their own tool-iter budget. The parent's
maxToolIterscapped the loop from outside, but the child neither knew the cap nor its current iteration — so anexplorerun could burn all 20 iters mapping the territory, hit the cap mid-thought, and emit a partial summary the parent had to re-dispatch.This PR closes the gap with prompt + telemetry:
spawnSubagentappends a one-paragraph "Tool budget: you have N tool calls" notice with the resolved cap baked in, applied uniformly to default, typed (explore/verify), and caller-supplied system prompts.setResultAugmenter— a new final-stage post-hook onToolRegistry.dispatch().spawnSubagentinstalls one that counts dispatches and appends[budget: K of N tool calls left — wrap up soon]once the child is within 3 iters of the cap, escalating to[budget: 0 left — finalize NOW]on the last call.Static prompt sets the expectation; dynamic countdown forces reckoning when the budget is actually tight.
Closes #488
Test plan
tests/subagent.test.ts— new case drives 5 tool calls under amaxToolIters: 5budget and asserts the augmented tool-result content at each iteration (no warning on iter 1, then3 / 2 / 1 / 0 lefton iters 2–5)..toBeto.toContain+ a regex match for the budget line.npm run verify(full suite, 2292 tests).