Description
Sub-agent session-name conflicts are difficult for agents to diagnose and recover from during orchestration.
Observed behavior
During sub-agent spawning tests, the model received a session-name conflict for a name it believed was new:
Sub-agent session name branch-wf-explorer is already in use
The model then had to infer that a previous failed or partially successful attempt may have reserved the name, and it switched to another name.
Why this is confusing
From the model transcript, it is not obvious whether the previous attempt actually created a running sub-agent, only loaded a deferred schema, failed validation, or left behind a reserved session name. The agent has to reason about hidden sub-agent state while also recovering from the tool-call error.
Impact
This adds friction to parallel orchestration. Models may avoid sub-agents after a few failed spawns, or they may spawn duplicate agents under new names without understanding what is already running.
Environment
- codewhale version: observed around v0.8.52
- Target milestone: v0.8.53
- Area: sub-agents, session lifecycle, tool errors
Description
Sub-agent session-name conflicts are difficult for agents to diagnose and recover from during orchestration.
Observed behavior
During sub-agent spawning tests, the model received a session-name conflict for a name it believed was new:
Sub-agent session name branch-wf-explorer is already in useThe model then had to infer that a previous failed or partially successful attempt may have reserved the name, and it switched to another name.
Why this is confusing
From the model transcript, it is not obvious whether the previous attempt actually created a running sub-agent, only loaded a deferred schema, failed validation, or left behind a reserved session name. The agent has to reason about hidden sub-agent state while also recovering from the tool-call error.
Impact
This adds friction to parallel orchestration. Models may avoid sub-agents after a few failed spawns, or they may spawn duplicate agents under new names without understanding what is already running.
Environment