fix: resolve target agent workspace for cross-agent subagent spawns by moshehbenavraham · Pull Request #40176 · openclaw/openclaw

moshehbenavraham · 2026-03-08T18:58:30Z

Summary

Cross-agent subagent spawns (e.g. PM → Ops via sessions_spawn(agentId: "ops")) incorrectly inherited the caller's workspace and persona files instead of the target agent's
Added targetAgentId parameter to resolveSpawnedWorkspaceInheritance so it resolves the target agent's workspace
For cross-agent spawns, skip passing the caller's ctx.workspaceDir as explicitWorkspaceDir so it doesn't short-circuit the resolution

Fixes #40171

Test plan

Unit tests pass (spawned-context.test.ts, subagent-spawn.attachments.test.ts — 19 tests)
Build passes (pnpm build)
Live test: PM spawns cross-agent sub-agent to Ops → sub-agent reads workspace-ops/IDENTITY.md and returns "Ops Agent" (previously read workspace-pm/IDENTITY.md and returned "PM Agent")
Same-agent spawns still inherit workspace correctly (no regression)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

greptile-apps · 2026-03-08T19:01:56Z

Greptile Summary

This PR fixes a bug where cross-agent subagent spawns (e.g. PM → Ops) incorrectly inherited the caller's workspace directory instead of the target agent's, by threading targetAgentId through resolveSpawnedWorkspaceInheritance and suppressing the caller's explicitWorkspaceDir for cross-agent cases. The logic change is minimal, focused, and correct.

Key observations:

The core fix is sound: for cross-agent spawns, explicitWorkspaceDir is set to undefined so it doesn't short-circuit resolution, and targetAgentId takes priority via ?? to drive workspace lookup via resolveAgentWorkspaceDir.
The same-agent path is correctly preserved — explicitWorkspaceDir is only cleared when targetAgentId !== requesterAgentId.
spawned-context.test.ts was not updated to cover the new targetAgentId behavior. The only call site always passes a non-nullish targetAgentId, making the requesterSessionKey-based fallback branch dead code for that caller — there are no tests asserting the cross-agent workspace resolution or the precedence of targetAgentId.
The PR test plan has one unchecked item ("Same-agent spawns still inherit workspace correctly") which should be verified before merge.

Confidence Score: 4/5

Safe to merge with minor caveats — the fix is logically correct but test coverage for the new behavior is incomplete and one test-plan item is unverified.
The change is small and targeted. The cross-agent workspace resolution logic is correct, and the same-agent path is unchanged. The main gaps are: (1) no unit tests for the new targetAgentId parameter in spawned-context.test.ts, and (2) the PR's own test plan leaves the same-agent regression check unchecked. These reduce confidence slightly but are not blockers for the fix itself.
src/agents/spawned-context.test.ts — needs tests for the targetAgentId parameter behavior.

Comments Outside Diff (1)

src/agents/spawned-context.test.ts, line 46-64 (link)

Missing tests for the new targetAgentId parameter

The resolveSpawnedWorkspaceInheritance describe block was not updated to cover the new targetAgentId parameter — the core behavior introduced by this PR.

Two cases that should be exercised:

Cross-agent spawn — targetAgentId provided and different from what requesterSessionKey would derive → should return the target agent's configured workspace, not the requester's.
targetAgentId always wins — since targetAgentId is passed as a non-nullish string at the only call site in subagent-spawn.ts, the requesterSessionKey-based fallback inside the function is now dead code for that caller. A test confirming targetAgentId takes precedence would document this intention explicitly.

Adding coverage here would also provide a regression guard for the unchecked item in the PR's test plan ("Same-agent spawns still inherit workspace correctly").

Prompt To Fix With AI

This is a comment left during a code review.
Path: src/agents/spawned-context.test.ts
Line: 46-64

Comment:
**Missing tests for the new `targetAgentId` parameter**

The `resolveSpawnedWorkspaceInheritance` describe block was not updated to cover the new `targetAgentId` parameter — the core behavior introduced by this PR.

Two cases that should be exercised:

1. **Cross-agent spawn** — `targetAgentId` provided and different from what `requesterSessionKey` would derive → should return the target agent's configured workspace, not the requester's.
2. **`targetAgentId` always wins** — since `targetAgentId` is passed as a non-nullish string at the only call site in `subagent-spawn.ts`, the `requesterSessionKey`-based fallback inside the function is now dead code for that caller. A test confirming `targetAgentId` takes precedence would document this intention explicitly.

Adding coverage here would also provide a regression guard for the unchecked item in the PR's test plan ("Same-agent spawns still inherit workspace correctly").

How can I resolve this? If you propose a fix, please make it concise.

_{Last reviewed commit: 3ef4491}

Cross-agent spawns (e.g. PM → Ops) incorrectly inherited the caller's workspace and persona files instead of the target agent's. Two issues: 1. resolveSpawnedWorkspaceInheritance extracted agent ID from the requester's session key, not the target agent 2. The caller's ctx.workspaceDir was passed as explicitWorkspaceDir, short-circuiting resolution before targetAgentId was considered Now targetAgentId is passed to the resolver and takes priority, and cross-agent spawns skip the caller's inherited workspace override. Fixes openclaw#40171

mcaxtr · 2026-03-13T15:09:56Z

Merged via squash.

Prepared head SHA: 2378e40383f194557c582b8e28976e57dfe03e8a
Merge commit: 55e79adf6916ffed4b745744793f1502338f1b92

Thanks @moshehbenavraham!

moshehbenavraham · 2026-03-13T15:20:05Z

Thank you and the team @mcaxtr ! Love the project!

@mcaxtr