docs(constitution): add anti-polling rule for sub-agent waiting strategy#4098
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Mr-Moon121 wants to merge 2 commits into
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docs(constitution): add anti-polling rule for sub-agent waiting strategy#4098Mr-Moon121 wants to merge 2 commits into
Mr-Moon121 wants to merge 2 commits into
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When the parent launches sub-agents and runs out of independent work, it currently falls into a wasteful peek+sleep polling loop instead of passively waiting for subagent_completion events. This burns turns and budget without changing the outcome (sub-agents don't finish faster because you polled them). Add explicit 'Waiting, not polling' guidance to the Sub-Agent Strategy section: do not poll with peek/status, do not use sleep as a wait primitive, and if the runtime gives you a new turn with no user message while children are running, stop immediately. Closes Hmbown#4097
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…agents When the parent turn ends because it has no independent work left but sub-agents are still running, inject a runtime event telling the model to wait passively instead of polling with peek/status/sleep. This is the runtime-side complement to the constitution.md anti-polling rule. Together they form a two-layer defense against the wasteful polling loop documented in Hmbown#4097. Refs: Hmbown#4097
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Problem
When the parent launches sub-agents and runs out of independent work, it falls into a wasteful peek-sleep-peek-sleep polling loop instead of passively waiting for subagent_completion events. This burns turns and budget without changing the outcome (sub-agents don't finish faster because you poll them).
Evidence: issue #4097 documents a real session where 3 sub-agents triggered 13 peek calls and 5 artificial sleep calls (140s blocked), with $0.086 sub-agent cost where the majority was polling overhead.
Solution
Add explicit "Waiting, not polling" guidance to the Sub-Agent Strategy section in constitution.md:
The runtime already delivers subagent.done sentinels as user messages when children complete. Polling is pure waste.
Change
One file: crates/tui/src/prompts/constitution.md — new bullet in the Sub-Agent Strategy section.
Closes #4097