Harness spec 2.0.0: background work is a job — commands and subagents alike, seen and steered

One registry per process, every job owned by a session: bash's background commands (and a command
still running at its timeout, which now goes to the background instead of being killed) and
subagents started with task background: true. job_list, job_output, job_stop (the former
bash_list, bash_output, bash_kill) and the new job_send and report; a finished job wakes the owning
session in every front end with its marked note. The TUI counts jobs, lists them (/jobs), opens a
command's output, enters a subagent and messages it, moves a command to the background (ctrl+b)
and asks before quitting with jobs running. The link gains the jobs capability. Subagents get a
session row of their own, the spec's preamble and agent texts, and their errors reach the report.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/project/agents.ts

@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ import { parse } from "yaml"
 import { paths } from "../config/paths.ts"
 import { asMode, type Mode } from "../config/schema.ts"
 import { canonicalToolNames } from "../tool/names.ts"
+import { promptText } from "../prompt/assemble.ts"
 
 export interface AgentSpec {
   name: string
@@ -22,28 +23,29 @@ export interface AgentSpec {
   source: "builtin" | "global" | "project"
 }
 
-/** Never given to a subagent: it cannot spawn more, and it has no user of its own to ask. */
-export const NOT_FOR_SUBAGENTS = new Set(["task", "ask_user", "plan_submit", "plan_write", "plan_update", "tasks", "decisions", "memory", "skill_manage", "settings", "note_manage"])
+/** Never given to a subagent: it cannot spawn more (so nothing to send to), and it has no user of
+ *  its own to ask. */
+export const NOT_FOR_SUBAGENTS = new Set(["task", "job_send", "ask_user", "plan_submit", "plan_write", "plan_update", "tasks", "decisions", "memory", "skill_manage", "settings", "note_manage"])
 
 export const BUILTIN_AGENTS: AgentSpec[] = [
   {
     name: "explore",
     description: "read-only research: find where things are, how they work, what a change would touch",
-    instructions:
-      "You can read, search and fetch, but not change anything. Look widely — several searches in one step when they are independent — then report what you found, not what you did: the answer first, then the evidence as file:line references.",
+    // The texts are the spec's (harness/prompts/agents), so LLeMbas's helper says the same words.
+    instructions: promptText("agents/explore.md"),
     mode: "plan",
-    tools: ["read", "glob", "grep", "list", "bash", "web_search", "web_fetch", "view_image"],
+    tools: ["read", "glob", "grep", "list", "bash", "job_output", "job_list", "job_stop", "web_search", "web_fetch", "view_image"],
     source: "builtin",
   },
   {
     name: "general",
     description: "a self-contained piece of work with the full toolset, under the same permission mode",
-    instructions: "Do the task completely, check it, and report what you changed and how you verified it.",
+    instructions: promptText("agents/general.md"),
     source: "builtin",
   },
 ]
 
-function load(dir: string, source: AgentSpec["source"]): AgentSpec[] {
+function load(dir: string, source: AgentSpec["source"], warnings?: string[]): AgentSpec[] {
   if (!existsSync(dir)) return []
   const out: AgentSpec[] = []
   for (const f of readdirSync(dir)) {
@@ -53,7 +55,11 @@ function load(dir: string, source: AgentSpec["source"]): AgentSpec[] {
     let meta: Record<string, unknown> = {}
     try {
       meta = fm ? ((parse(fm[1]!) as Record<string, unknown>) ?? {}) : {}
-    } catch {}
+    } catch (e) {
+      // The agent is still offered, with its body: said, so a broken frontmatter is not a silent
+      // loss of its model, mode or tools.
+      warnings?.push(`agent ${join(dir, f)}: frontmatter not read (${(e as Error).message.split("\n")[0]}); its description, model, mode and tools are ignored`)
+    }
     const body = (fm ? raw.slice(fm[0].length) : raw).trim()
     out.push({
       name: basename(f, ".md").toLowerCase().replace(/[^a-z0-9_-]/g, "-"),
@@ -69,8 +75,9 @@ function load(dir: string, source: AgentSpec["source"]): AgentSpec[] {
   return out
 }
 
-export function agents(projectDir: string | undefined): AgentSpec[] {
+/** `warnings`: where a file that could not be read whole is said (a notice at start). */
+export function agents(projectDir: string | undefined, warnings?: string[]): AgentSpec[] {
   const byName = new Map<string, AgentSpec>()
-  for (const a of [...BUILTIN_AGENTS, ...load(join(paths.config, "agents"), "global"), ...(projectDir ? load(join(projectDir, "agents"), "project") : [])]) byName.set(a.name, a)
+  for (const a of [...BUILTIN_AGENTS, ...load(join(paths.config, "agents"), "global", warnings), ...(projectDir ? load(join(projectDir, "agents"), "project", warnings) : [])]) byName.set(a.name, a)
   return [...byName.values()]
 }