A subagent whose loop gave up on a structured failure (e.g. "API call
failed after 3 retries: HTTP 524") returns that error message as
final_response together with completed=False / failed=True /
failure_reason. _run_single_child derived the batch-entry status from
the summary alone (`elif summary and not _empty_sentinel: status =
"completed"`), so the non-empty error text made the batch report show
the task as "✓ status=completed" — the `failed` flag was never
consulted anywhere in delegate_tool.py. Only the "(empty)" sentinel was
mapped to failed.
Fix, at the single status-determination choke point both the single-task
and batch paths share:
- `failed=True` on the child result now wins over a non-empty summary:
status = "failed".
- The child's classified failure_reason (rate_limit / billing /
server_error / ...) is propagated onto the batch entry so the parent
can tell a quota wall from a real task error without parsing prose.
- exit_reason for a structured failure is "error" instead of falling
through to "max_iterations" (which also wrongly set truncated=True).
Successful children (completed=True, no failed flag) are untouched —
covered by an explicit control test alongside the regression test,
which is red on the old code and green with the fix.
itskaism
1b6ea1a2c2