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020-pi-subagents-pi-runtime-research
ticket/grill

Subagent context modes

Question

What exact context modes should the extension support for child agents, including active-branch forked work, fully independent work, parent-summary seeding, persistent sessions, and adversarial review isolation?

Decisions

  • Version one supports only first-class fork and independent context modes.
  • Persistent child lifetimes are intentionally out of version one.
  • Summary-seeded context is not a first-class version-one mode.
  • fork uses the full active-branch transcript snapshot, not a summarized or tool-output-stripped transform.
  • fork adds a small wrapper that defines the delegated role, context boundary, and expected return shape.
  • User-facing wording should avoid "child agent". Prefer "delegated agent", "subagent", or "worker" depending on context.
  • independent receives the task prompt, selected agent definition, and normal trusted project context such as AGENTS.md.
  • independent receives no parent transcript and no generated parent summary by default.
  • Spawn requests may include explicit attachments or snippets for independent runs.
  • Context mode precedence is layered: global extension default, then agent definition default, then explicit spawn override.
  • Agent definitions may optionally constrain allowed context modes when an agent should never receive parent conversation context.
  • The version-one global default context mode is independent.
  • Parent conversation context is opt-in through fork, not inherited by default.
  • fork does not require special user confirmation in version one.
  • Confirmation is reserved for risky capabilities such as write tools, shell access, project extension inheritance, external directories, or higher-cost model selection.
  • fork copies the active branch as-is and lets child Pi handle any normal compaction.
  • Version one should not preflight context size into refusal or hidden summarization.
  • The parent receives the final textual result plus compact metadata by default.
  • Compact metadata includes agent name, context mode, elapsed time, stop reason, and child status/session id.
  • The default result should not copy selected evidence snippets or the child transcript into the parent context.