Work handed to a second model, which may not ask

subagent_run gives a self-contained piece of work to a helper carrying the
parent's connection, directory, model and effort, and hands its answer back as
the tool result. The mechanism is the one scheduled runs already use -- a hidden
chat, one turn, wake_chat, and a poll -- so tools, rounds, budgets, metrics and
steps all work with no second implementation. The two alternatives were
rejected where they had already been rejected once: a nested Generation is two
replies writing one transcript, and a one-shot complete() has no tools, which
schedule/runner.py records as useless for exactly this case.

Every restriction is a property of the child's row, applied by resolve_tools
after the gates, because a rule that lives in a system message is one a page the
model just read can argue with. No questions, no recursion, nothing that writes
unless the call asked for it and the parent's own mode would not have stopped
first, and commands only from a fixed read-only list -- in every mode including
Auto, because the task text can have come from a page.

Withdrawing ask_user turned out to be half of "nobody is watching". An approval
still built a card nobody could see and parked the reply until approval_timeout,
which from every screen is the feature not working. Chat.unattended is the
question now, and not the kind: _authorise answers with a refusal instead. A
scheduled task's chat had the same hole and is covered by the same flag.

Three bounds, counted where each is knowable: per reply on the parent's
Generation, instance-wide in a set a restart clears, and per helper in settings
of its own so one runs out of room long before the reply that asked. Past the
clock the helper is stopped rather than abandoned, so a partial answer comes
back with a sentence saying so.

Also: four gates had shipped into the scope menu with no name, taking the first
tool's label instead -- the canvas switch read "Canvas written". There is a test
that refuses a family without one.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/lembas/api/admin_agents.py

@@ -60,11 +60,57 @@ async def agents_page(request: Request, db: Db, user: AdminUser, saved: bool = F
                 for p in db.scalars(select(SshProfile))
                 if hosts.is_loopback(p.host) or p.resolves_here
             ),
+            # A group of its own, saved by its own form. Subagents are not an
+            # agent-chat feature -- an ordinary chat can delegate too -- but
+            # this is the page somebody looks at when they want to know what a
+            # reply is allowed to set going on its own, and a nav entry for one
+            # card would be worse than the near-miss.
+            "subagents": settings_store.subagents(db),
             "saved": saved,
         },
     )
 
 
+@router.post("/subagents")
+async def save_subagents(
+    db: Db,
+    user: AdminUser,
+    enabled: bool = Form(False),
+    max_per_reply: int = Form(4),
+    max_concurrent: int = Form(6),
+    max_rounds: int = Form(30),
+    wall_seconds: int = Form(600),
+    max_completion_tokens: int = Form(60_000),
+    keep_transcript: bool = Form(False),
+) -> Response:
+    """Its own route because it is its own settings group.
+
+    A single form writing two groups would mean one save handler deciding which
+    key each field belongs to, which is a mapping that goes wrong silently. Two
+    forms, two keys, and the browser posts only the one that was submitted.
+    """
+    settings_store.update(
+        db,
+        {
+            "enabled": enabled,
+            # Clamped here as well as on read, for the reason the agent settings
+            # give: a number with no bound is a way to break the instance from a
+            # form. Zero is kept only for the token ceiling, where it means "no
+            # ceiling"; everywhere else a zero would be the feature switched off
+            # wearing the switch's clothes.
+            "max_per_reply": min(max(max_per_reply, 1), 20),
+            "max_concurrent": min(max(max_concurrent, 1), 50),
+            "max_rounds": min(max(max_rounds, 1), 200),
+            "wall_seconds": min(max(wall_seconds, 30), 7200),
+            "max_completion_tokens": min(max(max_completion_tokens, 0), 5_000_000),
+            "keep_transcript": keep_transcript,
+        },
+        key=settings_store.SUBAGENTS,
+    )
+    log.info("subagents %s by %s", "enabled" if enabled else "disabled", user.email)
+    return RedirectResponse("/admin/agents?saved=1", status_code=status.HTTP_303_SEE_OTHER)
+
+
 @router.post("")
 async def save_agents(
     db: Db,

src/lembas/api/pages.py

@@ -190,7 +190,11 @@ _GATE_LABELS = {
     "memory": "Memory",
     "skills": "Skills",
     "ask": "Asking you questions",
+    "scratch": "Writing in the canvas",
+    "image": "Generating images",
     "report": "Filing reports",
+    "schedule": "Scheduling work",
+    "subagent": "Sending helpers",
     "agent": "Running commands",
     "custom": "Custom tools",
     "mcp": "MCP servers",