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Diffstat (limited to 'skills/pi-subagent/SKILL.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | skills/pi-subagent/SKILL.md | 64 |
1 files changed, 58 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/skills/pi-subagent/SKILL.md b/skills/pi-subagent/SKILL.md index c5f1bfb..7b17e50 100644 --- a/skills/pi-subagent/SKILL.md +++ b/skills/pi-subagent/SKILL.md @@ -5,8 +5,9 @@ description: >- run in the background, and collects each one's final answer plus its actual billed cost. Covers a single delegated task, the same task fanned out to several models for independent answers, or a job split into separate tasks - run in parallel, followed by verifying what came back. Use when the user - asks for subagents, to hand something to another model, to get several + run in parallel, followed by verifying what came back; a run saved as a + session can be followed up, resumed after a timeout, or forked. Use when + the user asks for subagents, to hand something to another model, to get several models' takes, or to parallelize work across pi runs — and when another skill (such as pi-review-panel) builds on it. Spawning costs money: never start subagents on your own initiative without the user asking. @@ -118,7 +119,8 @@ Always in the background, so you can keep working: Options go before the positionals: `--brief FILE` (default `$P/brief.md`), `--timeout SECS` (default 1800), `--thinking LEVEL` (default `high`), -`--tools LIST`, `--cwd DIR`, `--context-files`, `--deliver TEXT`. Names must be +`--tools LIST`, `--cwd DIR`, `--context-files`, `--deliver TEXT`, and +`--session` to keep the conversation for a follow-up (§10). Names must be unique within a workdir; a natural scheme is `<provider-abbrev>-<model>` for a fan-out and `<part>` for a split. @@ -164,8 +166,11 @@ ends with the fixed final line. Exit 124 is the timeout firing. `<name>.err` and `<name>.jsonl` say what happened otherwise. Retry a failure once, under the same name: `run-agent.sh` moves the failed -run's files to `<name>.attempt<N>.*` first, cost included. If it fails twice, -report it with its cost and carry on — one dead provider must not sink the job. +run's files to `<name>.attempt<N>.*` first, cost included. A run started with +`--session` that timed out after real progress is often better continued than +retried: `--followup` it (§10), and it picks up with everything it had read +and run. If it fails twice, report it with its cost and carry on — one dead +provider must not sink the job. For a split, a failed part is a gap you either fill yourself or report. ## 7. Verify, then use @@ -176,7 +181,11 @@ What comes back is raw material, not results: hallucinate line numbers, APIs, file contents and measurements, with confidence. - **Disagreement is where the answer is.** When answers conflict, run the - experiment that decides it and say who was right. + experiment that decides it and say who was right. With sessions (§10) you + can also put each side's claim to the other first — but a subagent + conceding or holding firm is not evidence either; the experiment is. +- **Ask for the evidence.** With a session, a vague or surprising claim can be + followed up: "show the exact command and output behind X". - **Consensus is weak evidence.** Several models agreeing can all be making the same mistake, or testing the same wrong version. One claim you confirmed outranks four you didn't. @@ -207,3 +216,46 @@ varies a lot across models, say so: it informs who to use next time. `$P` won't survive the session. If the answers matter, copy the `.md` outputs, the cost files, and any verification scripts somewhere durable in the project, and link those instead of `$P`. + +## 10. Follow up, resume, fork + +Off by default: a run saves nothing, and once it ends it can't be talked to +again. Pass `--session` at launch when you expect to come back to it — a long +run that may time out, a fan-out whose disagreements you'll want to put back +to the subagents, anything you may need to question. It costs nothing extra +until used. The session is kept as `$P/sessions/<timestamp>_<name>.jsonl`. + +Then, once that run has finished: + +```bash +# Continue the same conversation. Provider and model may differ from before. +"$SK/run-agent.sh" --followup "<message>" "$P" <provider> "<model>" <name> + +# Branch it into a new name; the original session is left as it was. +"$SK/run-agent.sh" --fork <name> --followup "<message>" "$P" <provider> "<model>" <new-name> +``` + +- **Uses.** Continue a run that timed out ("You were cut off. Carry on from + where you stopped and deliver the full result"). Ask for the evidence behind + a claim. Put another subagent's contradicting finding to it ("Another + reviewer says X, because Y. Check it and say who is right, with evidence"). + Fork to ask several different questions of the same context without them + seeing each other, or to hand a whole investigation to a different model — + it reads the full history, whoever produced it. +- **The message is sent as written.** No brief, no `--deliver` wrapper, so say + what to deliver and end with the same fixed final line if you'll tally it. +- **What carries over.** A follow-up or fork inherits `--tools`, `--thinking`, + `--cwd` and `--context-files` from the run it continues, so a read-only + subagent stays read-only; pass one again to change it. +- **Outputs.** The earlier round's files move to `<name>.round<N>.*`, so every + answer is kept and every round is its own row in the cost table. Each + follow-up resends the whole conversation as input: a short question to a long + session is not cheap. +- **Limits.** A run killed mid-step loses that step; everything before it is + in the session. `run-agent.sh` refuses to follow up or fork a run still in + flight. A fresh retry under the same name (no `--followup`) starts a new + conversation and moves the old session aside. +- **Don't hand-roll the resume.** By id, pi looks only among sessions started + in the current directory, and where it finds none it silently starts a new, + empty one under that id — exit 0, and an answer from a model that remembers + nothing. `run-agent.sh` opens the session by its file path instead. |
