The first OUT-OF-PROCESS subagent backend, proving the seam generalizes past the in-process backends. @deepseek-ai/dsh-subagent-acp runs each child agent in a spawned subprocess, driven over the Agent Client Protocol as the CLIENT — the direction-inverted twin of the dsh-acp server bridge. Point the configured command at the acp-agent example and the harness talks to its own process. - Fresh process per run: start spawns, runs one ACP session (initialize → newSession → prompt), dispose kills the subprocess and awaits its exit. - Minimal client stub: advertises no fs/terminal; accumulates agent_message_chunk text as the result output; auto-answers session/request_permission by a configured policy (reject default / allow). No start-time capabilities (an out-of-process child can't enforce the parent's depth/tool-filter); ignores request.parent; injects only `subagents`. - StopReason mapping (end_turn→completed, cancelled→aborted, …); result resolves error/aborted on a child failure, never rejects (seam contract). - Security: credential-shaped ambient env vars are scrubbed; the child's own key is forwarded only via explicit config.env. A spawn-level error (ENOENT) is captured and raced against the ACP drive so a bad command settles error rather than crashing the parent. Testing designed at every tier: keyless integration drives a scripted mock ACP server subprocess (cancellation incl. the pre-newSession race and a torn-pipe-after-cancel, permission auto-answer, non-message updates, spawn failure, HMR, export shape) at 100% coverage; a with-key e2e drives the REAL acp-agent example process (PONG + real file write, verified on disk) — the harness driving itself. Snapshot coverage of an ACP child is deferred as TODO(acp-subagent-replay) (each child is its own process with its own replay). Stayed on @agentclientprotocol/sdk 0.25.1: the proposed 0.28.x bump only deprecates the stable ClientSideConnection/AgentSideConnection API this layer uses (33 sites incl. the server bridge), turning no-deprecated red across code this PR shouldn't rewrite — that fluent-API migration is its own follow-up. The backend needs nothing 0.28.x adds. This completes the subagent seam stack (PR1 interface → PR2 in-process → PR2.5 snapshot infra → PR3 ACP); the seam RFC moves to implemented/, amended.
55 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
55 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
# RFC: Per-session snapshot replay for nested agents
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Status: implemented
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## Problem
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The snapshot tier (`pnpm run test:snapshot`) boots the real `acp-agent` subprocess, replays a recorded session through [`dsh-llm-replay`](../../../../packages/support/llm-replay), and diffs the normalized stdout transcript + re-persisted session log against committed goldens. It is the only tier that exercises the full editor-facing transcript end to end.
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It was built for ONE session per process, and that assumption is wired into two places:
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- **`dsh-llm-replay` keyed nothing.** It served the Nth `llm/stream` call the Nth recorded entry from a single global cursor. With a parent agent AND an in-process subagent both streaming on one context, the calls interleave and the single cursor hands the child the parent's script (and vice versa).
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- **The harness harvested one log.** `findSessionLog` walked the sessions root and returned the FIRST `.jsonl` it found. A subagent runs as a second `Session` with its own log in the same cwd bucket, so the child's transcript was silently dropped.
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This was the `TODO(subagent-snapshots)` deferral recorded in the [subagent seam RFC](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-21-subagent-capability-seam.md): the in-process backends (PR2) shipped with unit + e2e coverage, but the full-transcript snapshot tier could not express a nested-agent shape until this infrastructure landed. This RFC is that stacked follow-up.
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## Decision
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Replay is keyed **per calling session**, and the harness harvests **every** session log.
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### 1. The calling session id rides on the model request
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`GenerateOptions` gains an optional `sessionId`, stamped by the agent loop from `agent.session.id` at request-assembly time (where the session is already in scope). Adapters ignore it; it exists so an `llm/stream` listener can route a call by WHICH session issued it. It is typed `Branded<'SessionId'>` (from `dsh-brand`) rather than importing `SessionId` from `dsh-session` — that package imports `Message` from `dsh-llm`, so importing its id back would cycle. `SessionId` IS `Branded<'SessionId'>`, so a real id assigns with no cast. (A future dedicated ids package could own the brand and dissolve the note; tracked separately — it touches every id import and does not belong in this testing PR.)
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### 2. Replay binds live sessions to recorded scripts by first-call order
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A nested scenario records more than one log: the parent (`session.jsonl`) plus one per subagent child (`session.1.jsonl`, …). `dsh-llm-replay` loads them all, derives one script per recorded session, and orders the scripts by header `createdAt` (the parent is created before its children).
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Live session ids are freshly random every run and never equal the recorded ones, so a live session cannot bind to a script by id equality. Instead it binds by **first-call order**: the first live session to make any model call claims the first ordered script (the parent — earliest `createdAt`, and necessarily the first to stream, because it must run a turn before it can delegate), the next new live session claims the next script, and so on. Each session then advances its own cursor independently.
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This keys by WHO calls, not by global call order — so it stays correct even if subagents ever run concurrently or in the background (a global cursor would interleave them). A call carrying no `sessionId` (a direct unit-test `stream()`) is treated as one anonymous session bound to the primary script, so the single-session path is byte-for-byte the old behavior. More distinct live sessions than recorded scripts is a fail-loud error (an unrecorded subagent appeared), never a silent mis-route.
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The ordering key is the session header `createdAt`. In the current synchronous cut this is sound because sibling children are created **strictly sequentially** — the subagent tool awaits one child's result and disposes it before the parent's next tool call starts the next child — so their `createdAt` values are strictly ordered and match first-call order exactly. A same-millisecond sibling tie is therefore unreachable; the `recordedId` tiebreak only keeps such a degenerate collision deterministic, it does not recover first-call order. A future cut that runs siblings concurrently/backgrounded WOULD be able to create two children in the same millisecond, and must then thread a real first-call ordinal (the order live sessions first stream) rather than leaning on `createdAt` — flagged with `XXX(concurrent-subagents)` at the sort site.
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The alternative considered and rejected was a **call-ordered merge of the parent and child logs** into one global script (sound only because in-process subagent execution is strictly nested — the parent blocks on the child). It is simpler for today's synchronous cut but bakes in the parent-blocks-on-child invariant that a future backgrounded/concurrent subagent would break; per-session keying does not.
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### 3. The harness harvests every log, primary-first
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`harvestSessionLogs` collects every `.jsonl` across every cwd bucket under the sessions root (the JSONL backend puts a parent and its same-cwd child in the same bucket), parses each header, and orders them primary-first: the top-level session (no `parentSession`) leads, then each child by ascending `createdAt`. `RunResult.sessionLogs` is the plural result; the spec writes each back to its fixture on record (`session.jsonl` + `session.<n>.jsonl`) and diffs each harvested log against its fixture on replay. The normalizer already accepted plural session ids and collapses any stray UUID, so no normalizer change was needed.
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### 4. Scenarios
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Two nested scenarios were added and recorded against the real API:
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- **`subagent-spawn`** — the parent delegates one subtask via the `subagent` tool to a fresh spawn child (2 sessions).
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- **`subagent-multi`** — the parent delegates two subtasks, each to its own spawn child (3 sessions), stressing the per-session keying with three concurrent scripts and the `createdAt` ordering of two children under one parent.
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Both replay keyless in the default gate.
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## Consequences
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- The `TODO(subagent-snapshots)` deferral is resolved: nested-agent transcripts are now a first-class snapshot shape.
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- `GenerateOptions.sessionId` is a small, honest core-seam addition useful beyond replay (telemetry, request routing).
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- The `subagent` tool is bound to a single provider, so both children in `subagent-multi` are spawn (fresh). The fork backend is loaded in the example and exercised by PR2's unit tests; a mixed spawn+fork snapshot would need a second tool instance bound to `fork` (pure config) and is a trivial future addition, not a gap in the keying — the keying routes by session, not by backend.
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- Out-of-process (ACP) subagents are a different replay shape entirely (each child is its own PROCESS with its own replay), tracked as `TODO(acp-subagent-replay)` in the PR3 plan.
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