Agent CLI Delegation Operations

Agent Cli Delegation Operations

When to Use

Use when launching or supervising autonomous CLI agents, recovering stalled Codex/Codex runs, handling delegate_task limitations, routing failed Codex lanes to Codex, or maintaining plugin identity scope.

Class-Level Workflow

1. Prefer explicit background process tracking and absolute logs over shell-disowned runs.
2. Close stdin for Codex modes that wait for EOF; salvage Codex print stalls by checking process state and logs.
   • If a Codex background log contains only Reading additional input from stdin..., treat it as likely waiting for EOF or prompt delivery rather than useful progress. Re-check current codex exec --help, relaunch with a known-good stdin-close/input pattern, and verify output artifacts advance.
3. Poll by captured session IDs after launch; generic process lists can be empty even while known background sessions are still running. Treat process list as advisory, not authoritative, when session IDs are available.
4. For Gemini CLI lanes launched inside a repository, remember Gemini may auto-load .gemini/agents/*.md. Startup validation errors such as unsupported permissionMode keys can prevent useful work even while the wrapper remains alive; capture the error, run from a clean context or fix the agent definitions through a validated repo change.
5. Treat delegate_task lane limits as an orchestration constraint.
6. When a worker patches canonical skills, verify file paths and resulting content before reporting success.
7. Keep provider/agent fallback decisions evidence-based.

Consolidated Session Learnings

The references/ directory contains archived narrow skills absorbed during the 2026-04-29 umbrella consolidation pass. Use the subsections below as the class-level index, then open the named reference when a case-specific recipe is needed.

Absorbed Narrow Skills (2026-04-29)

Codex-delegated-issue-tree-expansion

• Former skill demoted to references/Codex-delegated-issue-tree-expansion.md.
• Preserved insight: Use Codex subagents for read-only gap analysis to expand an umbrella GitHub issue into a layered tree of focused child issues, then create the issues locally and update the issue map/docs.

Codex-plugin-update-id-scope

• Former skill demoted to references/Codex-plugin-update-id-scope.md.
• Preserved insight: Fix Codex plugin update failures caused by using the short plugin name instead of the installed plugin id and wrong scope.

Codex-print-stall-salvage

• Former skill demoted to references/Codex-print-stall-salvage.md.
• Preserved insight: Recover delegated Codex print-mode runs that stall silently or produce partial edits in large worktrees.

Codex-worker-patch-loop

• Former skill demoted to references/Codex-worker-patch-loop.md.
• Preserved insight: Use Codex as a delegated worker to patch canonical skills or policy files directly, then verify and iterate from the main session.

codex-background-burn-orchestration

• Former skill demoted to references/codex-background-burn-orchestration.md.
• Preserved insight: Run quota-aware Codex usage-burn waves as useful background issue-execution lanes, including Hermes stdin-close and sandbox recovery patterns.

codex-background-stdin-close

• Former skill demoted to references/codex-background-stdin-close.md.
• Preserved insight: Launch Codex CLI background runs in Hermes when Codex hangs at Reading additional input from stdin...; use explicit process stdin close and isolated worktrees.

codex-skill-loader-broken-symlink-recovery

• Former skill demoted to references/codex-skill-loader-broken-symlink-recovery.md.
• Preserved insight: Diagnose Codex startup failures in workspace-hub caused by a broken .Codex/skills/skills symlink and recover without misattributing the failure to issue scope.

delegate-task-4-lane-workaround

• Former skill demoted to references/delegate-task-4-lane-workaround.md.
• Preserved insight: Work around delegate_task batch concurrency cap when the user wants four parallel review lanes.

interactive-Codex-to-file-based-fallback

• Former skill demoted to references/interactive-Codex-to-file-based-fallback.md.
• Preserved insight: Switch from tmux/interactive Codex to file-based Codex -p execution when interactive runs fail with upstream errors or analysis-only stalls, then verify landing from git/GitHub state.