@nredd/pi-subagents 0.0.0-stage → 0.22.0-nredd.6

package/src/cross-extension-rpc.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,221 @@
+/**
+ * Cross-extension RPC handlers for the subagents extension.
+ *
+ * Exposes ping, spawn, stop, consume, and steer RPCs over the pi.events event bus,
+ * using per-request scoped reply channels.
+ *
+ * Reply envelope follows pi-mono convention:
+ *   success → { success: true, data?: T }
+ *   error   → { success: false, error: string }
+ *
+ * @see docs/rpc.md — the caller-facing integration reference: spawn options
+ * (including the fields spawnTopLevel strips), every error string, the
+ * completion-notification race, and what protocol version 2 does not promise.
+ */
+
+import { isTopLevelAgent } from "./agent-manager.js";
+import { type ModelRegistry, resolveModel } from "./model-resolver.js";
+import { checkModelScope } from "./model-scope.js";
+import type { AgentRecord } from "./types.js";
+
+/** Minimal event bus interface needed by the RPC handlers. */
+export interface EventBus {
+  on(event: string, handler: (data: unknown) => void): () => void;
+  emit(event: string, data: unknown): void;
+}
+
+/** RPC reply envelope — matches pi-mono's RpcResponse shape. */
+export type RpcReply<T = void> =
+  | { success: true; data?: T }
+  | { success: false; error: string };
+
+/** RPC protocol version — bumped when the envelope or method contracts change. */
+export const PROTOCOL_VERSION = 2;
+
+/** Minimal AgentManager interface needed by the spawn/stop/consume RPCs. */
+export interface SpawnCapable {
+  spawn(pi: unknown, ctx: unknown, type: string, prompt: string, options: any): string;
+  /** Resolves once the spawned agent is running; rejects on a startup failure. */
+  awaitStartup(id: string): Promise<void>;
+  abort(id: string): boolean;
+  /**
+   * The record behind an id, for the stop handler's ownership check. Narrowed
+   * to the two fields `isTopLevelAgent` reads, so the RPC layer keeps its
+   * deliberately shallow view of the manager.
+   */
+  getRecord(id: string): Pick<AgentRecord, "parentAgentId" | "workflowId"> | undefined;
+  /**
+   * Mark a settled agent's result as read by the caller, suppressing the
+   * completion notification — what `get_subagent_result` does when it returns
+   * one. False when there is no such agent, or it has not settled yet.
+   */
+  consumeResult(id: string): boolean;
+  /**
+   * Deliver a message to a running or queued agent's conversation — what
+   * `steer_subagent` does. False when the agent is unknown or has settled.
+   */
+  steer(id: string, message: string): boolean;
+}
+
+export interface RpcDeps {
+  events: EventBus;
+  pi: unknown;                    // passed through to manager.spawn
+  getCtx: () => unknown | undefined;  // returns current ExtensionContext
+  manager: SpawnCapable;
+}
+
+export interface RpcHandle {
+  unsubPing: () => void;
+  unsubSpawn: () => void;
+  unsubStop: () => void;
+  unsubConsume: () => void;
+  unsubSteer: () => void;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Wire a single RPC handler: listen on `channel`, run `fn(params)`,
+ * emit the reply envelope on `channel:reply:${requestId}`.
+ */
+function handleRpc<P extends { requestId: string }>(
+  events: EventBus,
+  channel: string,
+  fn: (params: P) => unknown | Promise<unknown>,
+): () => void {
+  return events.on(channel, async (raw: unknown) => {
+    const params = raw as P;
+    try {
+      const data = await fn(params);
+      const reply: { success: true; data?: unknown } = { success: true };
+      if (data !== undefined) reply.data = data;
+      events.emit(`${channel}:reply:${params.requestId}`, reply);
+    } catch (err: any) {
+      events.emit(`${channel}:reply:${params.requestId}`, {
+        success: false, error: err?.message ?? String(err),
+      });
+    }
+  });
+}
+
+/**
+ * Register ping, spawn, stop, consume, and steer RPC handlers on the event bus.
+ * Returns unsub functions for cleanup.
+ */
+export function registerRpcHandlers(deps: RpcDeps): RpcHandle {
+  const { events, pi, getCtx, manager } = deps;
+
+  const unsubPing = handleRpc(events, "subagents:rpc:ping", () => {
+    return { version: PROTOCOL_VERSION };
+  });
+
+  const unsubSpawn = handleRpc<{ requestId: string; type: string; prompt: string; options?: any }>(
+    events, "subagents:rpc:spawn", async ({ type, prompt, options }) => {
+      const ctx = getCtx();
+      if (!ctx) throw new Error("No active session");
+
+      // Cross-extension RPC callers (e.g. pi-tasks TaskExecute) naturally
+      // forward serializable values, so options.model can be a string like
+      // "openai-codex/gpt-5.5". Resolve it to a real Model instance here
+      // — same pattern the scheduler path already uses — so the spawned
+      // agent's auth lookup doesn't crash with "No API key found for
+      // undefined".
+      let normalizedOptions = options ?? {};
+      // `!= null` on purpose: a JSON-forwarding caller can serialize an unset
+      // field as null, and the runner reads `options.model ?? default`, so null
+      // means "inherit" — not an override to resolve or scope-check.
+      const override = normalizedOptions.model;
+      if (override != null) {
+        const { modelRegistry, cwd } = ctx as { modelRegistry?: ModelRegistry; cwd?: string };
+        // Names the override the same way in both messages below; an object
+        // override would otherwise interpolate as "[object Object]".
+        const label = typeof override === "string" ? override : `${override.provider}/${override.id}`;
+        if (!modelRegistry) {
+          throw new Error(`Model override "${label}" provided but ctx.modelRegistry is unavailable`);
+        }
+        let model = override;
+        if (typeof override === "string") {
+          const resolved = resolveModel(override, modelRegistry);
+          if (typeof resolved === "string") {
+            // resolveModel returns a human-readable error string when the
+            // input doesn't match any available model. Surface it instead of
+            // silently falling back so the caller sees the auth/typo issue.
+            throw new Error(resolved);
+          }
+          model = resolved;
+          normalizedOptions = { ...normalizedOptions, model: resolved };
+        }
+
+        // A model on the RPC payload is an orchestrator-level choice, exactly
+        // like Agent({ model }) — so it gets the Agent tool's hard error, never
+        // the frontmatter warn (#240). The check reads the RESOLVED model:
+        // resolveModel is fuzzy, so a bare "sonnet" can land on a provider the
+        // caller never named. Frontmatter-pinned and parent-inherited models are
+        // resolved later, in agent-runner, and keep warn-and-proceed.
+        const verdict = checkModelScope({
+          model,
+          cwd: cwd ?? process.cwd(),
+          modelRegistry,
+          callerSupplied: true,
+          agentLabel: type,
+          modelInput: label,
+        });
+        if (verdict.kind === "error") throw new Error(verdict.message);
+      }
+
+      const id = manager.spawn(pi, ctx, type, prompt, normalizedOptions);
+      // With isolation: "worktree" the agent starts asynchronously — wait for
+      // it, so a strict-isolation failure is still an error envelope rather
+      // than an id for an agent that never ran.
+      await manager.awaitStartup(id);
+      return { id };
+    },
+  );
+
+  // Only the session's own agents are this RPC's to stop or steer. A nested
+  // child or a workflow's agent is owned by something that is *waiting on it*,
+  // and aborting or redirecting it out from under that owner turns another
+  // extension's request into a failed step here. Defence in depth rather than
+  // a live hole: no RPC hands out agent ids, so a caller has no ordinary way to
+  // name one it does not own — but the guard is cheap and the id may leak some
+  // other way. Same refuse-what-we-should-not-touch stance as `consume` below.
+  const assertOwned = (agentId: string): void => {
+    const record = manager.getRecord(agentId);
+    if (!record) throw new Error("Agent not found");
+    if (!isTopLevelAgent(record)) throw new Error("Agent is owned by another agent or workflow");
+  };
+
+  const unsubStop = handleRpc<{ requestId: string; agentId: string }>(
+    events, "subagents:rpc:stop", ({ agentId }) => {
+      assertOwned(agentId);
+      // Not "not found" — the lookup above already proved it exists. `abort`
+      // returns false only for a record that is neither running nor queued,
+      // which is an agent that has already finished.
+      if (!manager.abort(agentId)) throw new Error("Agent is not running");
+    },
+  );
+
+  // A caller that has already shown the model an agent's result — pi-tasks'
+  // TaskOutput is the one in practice — says so here, so the completion
+  // notification for that same result is not delivered on top of it and does
+  // not cost the parent a turn. Deliberately outside the ping version
+  // handshake: an extension built against protocol v2 simply never calls it.
+  const unsubConsume = handleRpc<{ requestId: string; agentId: string }>(
+    events, "subagents:rpc:consume", ({ agentId }) => {
+      if (!manager.consumeResult(agentId)) throw new Error("Agent not found or still running");
+    },
+  );
+
+  // An extension that spawned an agent over the bus and then learns something
+  // that agent needs — a second CI failure on the head it is already fixing, a
+  // review that landed mid-run — can hand it over instead of spawning a second
+  // agent for the same work or dropping the fact. Outside the ping version
+  // handshake, like consume: additive and best-effort.
+  const unsubSteer = handleRpc<{ requestId: string; agentId: string; message: unknown }>(
+    events, "subagents:rpc:steer", ({ agentId, message }) => {
+      if (typeof message !== "string" || message.trim().length === 0) throw new Error("Steer message must be a non-empty string");
+      assertOwned(agentId);
+      if (!manager.steer(agentId, message)) throw new Error("Agent is not running");
+    },
+  );
+
+  return { unsubPing, unsubSpawn, unsubStop, unsubConsume, unsubSteer };
+}

package/src/custom-agents.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,436 @@
+/**
+ * custom-agents.ts — Load user-defined agents from project (.pi/agents/, plus the shared .agents/agents/ workspace) and global ($PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/agents/, default ~/.pi/agent/agents/) locations, plus any installed pi package that declares them (see package-resources.ts).
+ */
+
+import { existsSync, readdirSync, readFileSync, statSync } from "node:fs";
+import { basename, join } from "node:path";
+import { getAgentDir, parseFrontmatter } from "@earendil-works/pi-coding-agent";
+import { BUILTIN_TOOL_NAMES } from "./agent-types.js";
+import {
+  isPackageResourceExcluded,
+  isProjectTrusted,
+  MAX_PACKAGE_RESOURCE_BYTES,
+  packageAgentDirs,
+  packageAgentFiles,
+} from "./package-resources.js";
+import type { AgentConfig, IsolationMode, MemoryScope, ThinkingLevel } from "./types.js";
+
+/**
+ * The one thing a declared `name:` may not contain, matching Claude Code
+ * exactly: it reserves `:` for plugin-scoped identifiers (`my-plugin:reviewer`)
+ * and refuses to load a file whose name uses one.
+ *
+ * Nothing else is rejected. Claude Code's docs describe names as "lowercase
+ * letters and hyphens", but that is guidance — the only stated load failure is
+ * the colon, so `name: Code Reviewer` must work here too. (The stricter
+ * letters/digits/underscore/hyphen regex in Claude Code applies to the Agent
+ * tool's spawn-time `name` parameter, which is a different field.) Mixed case
+ * has to be allowed regardless: the built-in types `Explore` and `Plan` use it,
+ * and a file must be able to override one.
+ */
+const RESERVED_IN_TYPE = ":";
+
+/** Where an agent file was found. Widens `AgentConfig.source` for the loader. */
+type AgentSource = "project" | "global" | "package";
+
+/** Answers whether a `!` entry in some package manifest excludes this path. */
+type Excluder = (path: string) => boolean;
+
+/**
+ * Overrides for the package tier. The gate and project-trust state normally come
+ * from the session values in package-resources.ts, so these exist for tests and
+ * for a caller that has to pin a scan it already performed.
+ */
+export interface LoadCustomAgentsOptions {
+  /** Explicit package directories, bypassing discovery. */
+  packageDirs?: string[];
+  /** Explicit package files, bypassing discovery. */
+  packageFiles?: string[];
+  /** Explicit `!` exclusion predicate, bypassing discovery. */
+  packageExcluded?: Excluder;
+  /**
+   * Whether pi trusts the project at `cwd`. Gates the project roots and, for
+   * discovered packages, the project's `.pi/settings.json`. Omitted falls back to
+   * the session state in package-resources.ts, which is untrusted until pi's
+   * answer is recorded.
+   */
+  projectTrusted?: boolean;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Scan for custom agent .md files from multiple locations.
+ * Discovery hierarchy (higher priority wins):
+ *   1. Project:   <cwd>/.pi/agents/*.md (authoritative — also where /agents writes)
+ *   2. Workspace: <cwd>/.agents/agents/*.md (shared cross-tool .agents workspace, read-only)
+ *   3. Global:    $PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/agents/*.md (default: ~/.pi/agent/agents/*.md)
+ *   4. Package:   paths declared by an installed pi package (read-only)
+ *
+ * The two project roots are project-supplied content and load only when pi
+ * trusts the project (`opts.projectTrusted`, else the session state). Untrusted,
+ * they are not even read: they cannot override a global or package agent, and a
+ * malformed file in them neither warns nor, under `strict`, throws. Global agents
+ * and globally configured packages are unaffected; packages configured only by
+ * the project's `.pi/settings.json` are gated by the same decision.
+ *
+ * Project-level agents override global ones with the same name. On a name clash
+ * between the two project locations, .pi/agents wins — .pi stays the project
+ * authority; .agents/agents is an additional read location.
+ * Any name is allowed — names matching defaults (e.g. "Explore") override them.
+ *
+ * Package agents load *first*, so everything the user or project wrote outranks
+ * them. That is what makes them safe to adopt: a package can offer a `reviewer`,
+ * and a `.pi/agents/reviewer.md` silently takes it back. It mirrors pi's own
+ * resource precedence, where package-provided skills rank below every user and
+ * project one, and Claude Code's, where a plugin agent is the lowest tier.
+ *
+ * An agent's type comes from its frontmatter `name:`, falling back to the
+ * filename — Claude Code's rule, where "the filename doesn't have to match".
+ * Because the type is now declared rather than derived from a unique path, two
+ * files can claim the same one; the later load wins, as it always has for a
+ * filename clash, and `warnSkippedOverride` reports the substitution.
+ */
+export function loadCustomAgents(
+  cwd: string,
+  strict = false,
+  opts: LoadCustomAgentsOptions = {},
+): Map<string, AgentConfig> {
+  const globalDir = join(getAgentDir(), "agents");
+  const workspaceProjectDir = join(cwd, ".agents", "agents");
+  const projectDir = join(cwd, ".pi", "agents");
+
+  const projectTrusted = opts.projectTrusted ?? isProjectTrusted();
+  const pkgDirs = opts.packageDirs ?? packageAgentDirs(cwd, { projectTrusted });
+  const pkgFiles = opts.packageFiles ?? packageAgentFiles(cwd, { projectTrusted });
+  // `!./agents/wip.md` alongside `./agents` excludes one file out of a directory
+  // that is only enumerated here, so the check has to run per file.
+  const excluded: Excluder = opts.packageExcluded ?? (path => isPackageResourceExcluded(path, cwd, "agents", { projectTrusted }));
+
+  const agents = new Map<string, AgentConfig>();
+  for (const dir of pkgDirs) loadFromDir(dir, agents, "package", strict, excluded); // lowest priority
+  for (const file of pkgFiles) loadOneFile(file, agents, "package", strict);
+  loadFromDir(globalDir, agents, "global", strict);
+  if (projectTrusted) {
+    loadFromDir(workspaceProjectDir, agents, "project", strict); // shared workspace
+    loadFromDir(projectDir, agents, "project", strict);          // highest priority (overwrites)
+  }
+
+  warnedLastLoad = warnedThisLoad;
+  warnedThisLoad = new Set();
+  return agents;
+}
+
+/** Load agent configs from a directory into the map, skipping any `excluded` path. */
+function loadFromDir(
+  dir: string,
+  agents: Map<string, AgentConfig>,
+  source: AgentSource,
+  strict: boolean,
+  excluded?: Excluder,
+): void {
+  if (!existsSync(dir)) return;
+
+  let files: string[];
+  try {
+    files = readdirSync(dir).filter(f => f.endsWith(".md"));
+  } catch {
+    return;
+  }
+
+  for (const file of files) {
+    const path = join(dir, file);
+    if (excluded?.(path)) continue;
+    loadOneFile(path, agents, source, strict);
+  }
+}
+
+/**
+ * Load one agent file into the map.
+ *
+ * Split out of `loadFromDir` because a package manifest may name an individual
+ * `.md` rather than a directory, and because the size guard below has to apply
+ * to both paths.
+ */
+function loadOneFile(path: string, agents: Map<string, AgentConfig>, source: AgentSource, strict: boolean): void {
+  const filenameType = basename(path, ".md");
+
+  // Package files are third-party content read on every `Agent` call, so a
+  // pathological one is skipped rather than pulled into the session. Claude
+  // Code applies the same 1 MB ceiling to plugin-provided agents. Local files
+  // are the user's own and stay unbounded, as they always have been.
+  if (source === "package" && !withinSizeLimit(path)) {
+    warnIfNew(`Skipping package agent ${path}: not a regular file, or larger than ${MAX_PACKAGE_RESOURCE_BYTES} bytes.`);
+    return;
+  }
+
+  // `strict` is deliberately not passed for a package file. Failing activation
+  // over a broken agent file is right for a checked-in `.pi/agents/` — the point
+  // is that a repo's own file cannot silently fall through to a same-named one
+  // elsewhere. A file inside a third-party package is not the user's to fix, and
+  // one bad `.md` in any installed package would otherwise stop pi from
+  // starting at all. Warn and skip, as for a non-strict local file.
+  const parsed = readAgentFile(path, strict && source !== "package");
+  if (!parsed) {
+    warnSkippedOverride(filenameType, agents);
+    return;
+  }
+  const { frontmatter: fm, body } = parsed;
+
+  // Claude Code's rule: `name:` IS the agent type, and the filename need not
+  // match. Absent, the filename stands in — Claude Code requires the field,
+  // but most files here predate it and must keep loading.
+  const declared = str(fm.name)?.trim();
+  if (declared?.includes(RESERVED_IN_TYPE)) {
+    // Refusing beats silently substituting: the file would otherwise load
+    // under its filename, so `Agent({subagent_type})` would succeed against
+    // an agent whose declared identity nothing honoured.
+    warnIfNew(
+      `Agent file ${path} declares name "${declared}", which contains "${RESERVED_IN_TYPE}" — reserved for `
+      + "plugin-scoped identifiers. Rename it, or move the label to `display_name:`. Skipping.",
+    );
+    // No `warnSkippedOverride`: this file would have registered under its
+    // *declared* name, which nothing else can hold (a colon keeps it out of
+    // the registry), so it shadowed nothing. Passing the filename instead
+    // would report a substitution of an unrelated agent that never happened.
+    return;
+  }
+  // `||`, not `??`: a quoted empty or all-whitespace `name:` would otherwise
+  // register the agent under the empty type — unspawnable, and it takes the
+  // filename-derived one down with it.
+  const name = declared || filenameType;
+
+  const { builtinToolNames, extSelectors } = parseToolsField(fm.tools);
+
+  agents.set(name, {
+    name,
+    // Only `display_name` now: `name` is the type, and `getConfig` already
+    // falls back to the type when no label is set — so a Claude Code file
+    // with `name: code-reviewer` still badges as "code-reviewer".
+    displayName: str(fm.display_name),
+    color: str(fm.color),
+    description: str(fm.description) ?? name,
+    builtinToolNames,
+    extSelectors,
+    disallowedTools: csvListOptional(fm.disallowed_tools),
+    extensions: inheritField(fm.extensions ?? fm.inherit_extensions),
+    excludeExtensions: csvListOptional(fm.exclude_extensions),
+    skills: inheritField(fm.skills ?? fm.inherit_skills),
+    model: str(fm.model),
+    thinking: str(fm.thinking) as ThinkingLevel | undefined,
+    maxTurns: nonNegativeInt(fm.max_turns),
+    persistSession: fm.persist_session != null ? fm.persist_session === true : undefined,
+    outputTranscript: fm.output_transcript != null ? fm.output_transcript !== false : undefined,
+    sessionDir: str(fm.session_dir),
+    allowedSubagents: parseAllowedSubagents(fm.allowed_subagents),
+    systemPrompt: body.trim(),
+    promptMode: fm.prompt_mode === "append" ? "append" : "replace",
+    inheritContext: fm.inherit_context != null ? fm.inherit_context === true : undefined,
+    runInBackground: fm.run_in_background != null ? fm.run_in_background === true : undefined,
+    isolated: fm.isolated != null ? fm.isolated === true : undefined,
+    memory: parseMemory(fm.memory),
+    isolation: parseIsolation(fm.isolation),
+    enabled: fm.enabled !== false,  // default true; explicitly false disables
+    source,
+    sourcePath: path,
+  });
+}
+
+/**
+ * True when `path` is a regular file within the package-resource size ceiling.
+ *
+ * Only applied to package-provided files: they arrive from a third party and are
+ * re-read on every `Agent` call, so a 500 MB `.md` — or a fifo that never ends —
+ * must not be reachable from a spawn. A stat failure counts as "not within",
+ * because the alternative is reading something we could not describe.
+ */
+function withinSizeLimit(path: string): boolean {
+  try {
+    const stat = statSync(path);
+    return stat.isFile() && stat.size <= MAX_PACKAGE_RESOURCE_BYTES;
+  } catch {
+    return false;
+  }
+}
+
+/**
+ * Read and parse one agent file, or warn and return undefined for the caller to
+ * skip. One bad file must not take the whole extension down with it — an
+ * unparseable `.md` used to abort activation, so pi exited before the TUI.
+ *
+ * The path is as much of the fix as the recovery: a bare YAML error ("line 2,
+ * column 14") is unactionable when agents come from three directories at once,
+ * and the only other symptom is `Unknown agent type`, which reads like a typo.
+ *
+ * Under `strict` the same failure rethrows, still naming the path, so callers
+ * that opted into failing closed stop rather than run a substituted agent.
+ */
+/**
+ * Parse an agent file's frontmatter, tolerating a leading UTF-8 BOM.
+ *
+ * Editors across the Windows/CJK world write UTF-8 with a BOM by default, and
+ * pi's parser did not look past one before 0.84.3: the fence never matched, so
+ * the frontmatter came back empty and the *whole file* — YAML and all — became
+ * the body. An agent authored that way silently lost every field. `tools: none`
+ * going missing is the sharp edge: the agent registers with the default
+ * toolset rather than none, which is a wider grant than its author wrote.
+ *
+ * Stripped here rather than detected per pi version, because this is the only
+ * place agent files are read and the BOM is a file-encoding artifact, not
+ * content — normalising it at the boundary keeps one behaviour across the whole
+ * supported peer range instead of forking on what happens to be installed.
+ */
+export function parseAgentFrontmatter<T extends Record<string, unknown>>(content: string): { frontmatter: T; body: string } {
+  return parseFrontmatter<T>(content.startsWith("\uFEFF") ? content.slice(1) : content);
+}
+
+function readAgentFile(path: string, strict: boolean): { frontmatter: Record<string, unknown>; body: string } | undefined {
+  try {
+    return parseAgentFrontmatter<Record<string, unknown>>(readFileSync(path, "utf-8"));
+  } catch (err) {
+    const reason = err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err);
+    if (strict) throw new Error(`${path}: ${reason}`);
+    warnIfNew(`Skipping agent file ${path}: ${reason}`);
+    return undefined;
+  }
+}
+
+/**
+ * A skipped file that was overriding an already-loaded agent leaves the name
+ * pointing at a *different* file — its own prompt, model and tools. Nothing
+ * downstream can flag that: unlike an unknown type, the `Agent` call succeeds.
+ */
+function warnSkippedOverride(name: string, agents: Map<string, AgentConfig>): void {
+  const surviving = agents.get(name);
+  // Nothing shadowed, or what it shadowed is disabled: dispatch refuses the type
+  // either way (see resolveEnabledTypeIn), so there is no substitution to report.
+  if (!surviving?.sourcePath || surviving.enabled === false) return;
+  warnIfNew(`Agent "${name}" now loads from ${surviving.sourcePath} instead`);
+}
+
+let warnedLastLoad = new Set<string>();
+let warnedThisLoad = new Set<string>();
+
+/**
+ * Agents reload on activation and again on every `Agent` call, so an unchanged
+ * problem would re-warn all session — over a painted TUI, since pi does not
+ * redirect console output. Compare against the previous load rather than every
+ * load ever, so a file that is fixed and then broken again still reports.
+ */
+function warnIfNew(message: string): void {
+  warnedThisLoad.add(message);
+  if (warnedLastLoad.has(message)) return;
+  console.warn(`[pi-subagents] ${message}`);
+}
+
+// ---- Field parsers ----
+// All follow the same convention: omitted → default, "none"/empty → nothing, value → exact.
+
+/** Extract a string or undefined. */
+function str(val: unknown): string | undefined {
+  return typeof val === "string" ? val : undefined;
+}
+
+/** Extract a non-negative integer or undefined. 0 means unlimited for max_turns. */
+function nonNegativeInt(val: unknown): number | undefined {
+  return typeof val === "number" && val >= 0 ? val : undefined;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Parse a raw CSV field value into items, or undefined if absent/empty/"none".
+ */
+function parseCsvField(val: unknown): string[] | undefined {
+  if (val === undefined || val === null) return undefined;
+  const s = String(val).trim();
+  if (!s || s === "none") return undefined;
+  const items = s.split(",").map(t => t.trim()).filter(Boolean);
+  return items.length > 0 ? items : undefined;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Parse the nested-delegation allowlist. Single field, default-off:
+ * omitted/empty/"none"/`false` → undefined (no nested tools); "all"/"*"/`true`
+ * → "all" (any enabled agent); csv → only the listed types.
+ *
+ * Booleans are accepted because `extensions:`/`skills:` take them and users
+ * generalize: without this, YAML's `true` stringifies into an agent type
+ * literally named "true", so the tools appear and every spawn is refused.
+ */
+function parseAllowedSubagents(val: unknown): "all" | string[] | undefined {
+  if (typeof val === "boolean") return val ? "all" : undefined;
+  const items = parseCsvField(val);
+  if (!items) return undefined;
+  return items.some(i => i === "*" || i.toLowerCase() === "all") ? "all" : items;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Parse a comma-separated list field with defaults.
+ * omitted → defaults; "none"/empty → []; csv → listed items.
+ */
+function csvList(val: unknown, defaults: string[]): string[] {
+  if (val === undefined || val === null) return defaults;
+  return parseCsvField(val) ?? [];
+}
+
+/**
+ * Partition the `tools:` CSV into the built-in tool allowlist and raw `ext:` selectors.
+ * `*` (and the case-insensitive alias `all`, for `tools: all`) expands to all
+ * built-ins; plain entries are built-in names; `ext:` entries are extension-tool
+ * selectors parsed later by the runner. omitted → all built-ins, no selectors.
+ * `tools:` present with only `ext:` entries → zero built-ins (use `*`).
+ */
+function parseToolsField(val: unknown): { builtinToolNames: string[]; extSelectors: string[] | undefined } {
+  const entries = csvList(val, BUILTIN_TOOL_NAMES);
+  const isWildcard = (e: string) => e === "*" || e.toLowerCase() === "all";
+  const hasWildcard = entries.some(isWildcard);
+  const plain = entries.filter(e => !isWildcard(e) && !e.startsWith("ext:"));
+  const extEntries = entries.filter(e => e.startsWith("ext:"));
+  return {
+    builtinToolNames: hasWildcard ? [...new Set([...BUILTIN_TOOL_NAMES, ...plain])] : plain,
+    extSelectors: extEntries.length > 0 ? extEntries : undefined,
+  };
+}
+
+/**
+ * Parse an optional comma-separated list field.
+ * omitted → undefined; "none"/empty → undefined; csv → listed items.
+ */
+function csvListOptional(val: unknown): string[] | undefined {
+  return parseCsvField(val);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Parse a memory scope field.
+ * omitted → undefined; "user"/"project"/"local" → MemoryScope.
+ */
+function parseMemory(val: unknown): MemoryScope | undefined {
+  if (val === "user" || val === "project" || val === "local") return val;
+  return undefined;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Parse the `isolation` frontmatter field.
+ *
+ * `off` is kept as a value rather than folded into `undefined` because the two
+ * do not mean the same thing here: agent config outranks tool-call params, so
+ * `off` vetoes a caller's `worktree` while an absent field lets it through.
+ *
+ * pi's frontmatter parser is not YAML 1.1 — bare `off` and `no` arrive as
+ * strings and only `false` becomes a boolean — so all three spellings are
+ * accepted rather than leaving an author's intent silently dropped. Anything
+ * else stays `undefined`, as before.
+ */
+function parseIsolation(val: unknown): IsolationMode | undefined {
+  if (val === "worktree") return "worktree";
+  if (val === "off" || val === "none" || val === "no" || val === false) return "off";
+  return undefined;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Parse an inherit field (extensions, skills).
+ * omitted/true → true (inherit all); false/"none"/empty → false; csv → listed names.
+ */
+function inheritField(val: unknown): true | string[] | false {
+  if (val === undefined || val === null || val === true) return true;
+  if (val === false || val === "none") return false;
+  const items = csvList(val, []);
+  return items.length > 0 ? items : false;
+}