Core Agent Orchestration

Core Agent Orchestration

Purpose

Manages AI agent lifecycle using pydantic-ai framework, including agent creation, request processing, tool execution, and multi-agent delegation.

Provider Architecture

At agent_config.py, the _create_model_with_retry() function creates providers:

OpenAI-compatible providers attach validate_openai_chat_completion_response as an HTTP response hook to detect error payloads and missing required fields before pydantic-ai validation.

The same HTTP client, retry logic, and provider instances are used for all requests.

Message Flow

User Message
     |
     v
process_request() [main.py]
     |
     v
RequestOrchestrator created [main.py]
     |
     v
get_or_create_agent() [agent_config.py]
     |   - Always uses full tool set
     |   - Applies max_tokens (if set)
     v
prune_old_tool_outputs() [main.py]
     |   - Backward scan messages
     |   - Protect recent outputs
     |   - Replace old with placeholder
     v
agent.iter() -> Provider HTTP Request

Key Components

Main Entry Point

process_request() in main.py

• Creates RequestOrchestrator with agent configuration
• Prunes old tool outputs before iteration
• Iterates through agent responses until completion
• Handles tool execution and result aggregation
• Tracks iteration counters during the run
• Emits lifecycle debug logs when SessionState.debug_mode is enabled

Agent Components

agent_config.py

• get_or_create_agent() - Factory for cached Agent instances
• _create_model_with_retry() - Model initialization with fallback
• load_system_prompt() - Loads system prompt
• load_tunacode_context() - Loads guide file into system prompt (defaults to AGENTS.md)

openai_response_validation.py

• validate_openai_chat_completion_response() - HTTP response hook that detects error payloads and missing required fields before pydantic-ai validation.

orchestrator/

8-step coordinator for node processing, decomposed into focused modules:

streaming.py

• stream_model_request_node() - Streams token deltas with debug instrumentation
• Short-circuits when debug_mode is False to minimize overhead
• Capped debug accumulators prevent memory growth:
  • DEBUG_STREAM_EVENT_HISTORY_LIMIT (200) - max stored events
  • DEBUG_STREAM_RAW_STREAM_MAX_CHARS (20,000) - max raw stream size
  • DEBUG_STREAM_EVENT_LOG_LIMIT (5) - events logged per stream

streaming_debug.py

• Debug helper functions for stream previews, event summaries, and raw stream capture
• Owns DEBUG_STREAM_* constants and truncation limits for debug instrumentation

tool_executor.py

• execute_tools_parallel() - Concurrent read-only tool execution
• Implements exponential backoff retry logic
• Batches tools for efficiency
• Emits lifecycle debug logs for tool execution phases when debug mode is enabled

tool_buffer.py

• ToolBuffer - Collects and batches read-only tool calls
• Separates read-only from write operations

Delegation System

delegation_tools.py

• create_research_codebase_tool() - Creates research delegation tool
• Spawns specialized research_agent for codebase exploration
• Research agent uses read-only tools only

research_agent.py

• Specialized agent with focused system prompt
• Limited tool set (glob, grep, read_file, list_dir)
• Returns structured research summaries

State Management

state_transition.py

• AgentStateMachine - Tracks processing states
• Valid transitions: USER_INPUT → ASSISTANT → TOOL_EXECUTION → RESPONSE
• Ensures proper state flow

history_preparer.py

• HistoryPreparer - Prepares and sanitizes message history for agent runs
• Handles pruning, cleanup, and sanitization of conversation history

request_logger.py

• Logging utilities for request processing
• Functions: log_history_state(), log_sanitized_history_state(), log_node_details()

Configuration

AgentConfig dataclass:

• max_iterations (default: 15) - Configured per-request iteration limit value

Tool Categories

Tool set

Full tool set with detailed descriptions:

Message Types

Messages use pydantic-ai's standard types from types/pydantic_ai.py:

Message format is identical in both modes. The only differences are:

• Content size (pruned more aggressively in local mode)
• System prompt content (shorter in local mode)
• Tool schemas (fewer in local mode)

Message history persistence happens after a run finishes or aborts. RequestOrchestrator syncs SessionState.conversation.messages from agent_run.all_messages() on normal completion, but does not persist on abort/cancel to prevent dangling tool calls.

When aborting (e.g., ESC pressed during tool execution):

• agent_run state is not persisted to avoid copying incomplete tool states
• Only cleanups already in session.conversation.messages are applied (dangling tool calls, empty responses, consecutive requests)
• This prevents 'Cannot provide a new user prompt when the message history contains unprocessed tool calls' errors

See main.py:328-348 for the abort handling logic. The message_has_tool_calls() helper is now in request_logger.py.

Integration Points

Seams (M, D)

Modification Points:

• Add new agent types (e.g., code_review_agent)
• Customize iteration settings and ReAct snapshot cadence
• Extend tool categorization logic
• Add new delegation patterns

Extension Points:

• Implement custom agent factories
• Add specialized tool executors
• Create new state machine transitions