[coordination][deferred] Cross-agent delegation (delegate a goal to another instance's brain) #159

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1. serge-ivo

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   backendBackend / Worker / API workBackend / Worker / API work

   coordinationAgent coordination / delegation primitivesAgent coordination / delegation primitives

   on Aug 3, 2026
2. serge-ivo

   added a commit that references this issue on Aug 3, 2026

   docs: coordination-primitives design (#154) — delegate goals, not one…

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   fd19495
3. serge-ivo commented on Aug 3, 2026

   

   serge-ivo

   on Aug 3, 2026

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   The second consumer has arrived

   This was deferred with "needs a real second consumer beyond Coder — do NOT build speculatively." That gate is now met: the requirement is configurable multi-layer supervision — a user wiring agents to oversee other agents, at arbitrary depth, as configuration rather than code.

   Design: docs/supervision.md.

   Rather than building this directly, it should now fall out of:

   • [coordination][deferred] First-class delegate(target, goal) registry primitive #156 — generalize the delegate target from repoId to a supervisable entity (the type change that unlocks everything)
   • [coordination] Supervision graph as configured platform data — hierarchy belongs to the platform, not inside an agent #183 — the supervision graph as configured data (edge table, DAG validation, reuse of the 0058 delivery outbox)
   • [coordination] Autonomous work budget — bound spend across every unattended entry point #184 — delegation budget (depth + spend flowing down)
   • [coordination][security] Supervision must not escalate authority — a delegation lends a goal, never privileges #185 — authority containment (a delegation lends a goal, never privileges)

   Cross-agent delegation is then the natural consequence of those four, not separate work. Keeping this open as the outcome to verify against.
4. serge-ivo

   added a commit that references this issue on Aug 4, 2026

   feat(coordination): turn on agent-to-agent delegation; console rides …

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   67eb915
5. serge-ivo commented on Aug 4, 2026

   

   serge-ivo

   on Aug 4, 2026

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   Live as of 67eb915 — lib/delegate-instance.ts + POST /v1/instances/:id/delegate.

   This was deferred with "needs a real second consumer — do NOT build speculatively", then gated behind #183/#184/#185. All three landed, so it is on. Each is enforced on the delegation path, not assumed:

   • The configured graph decides who may drive whom. Delegating to an instance that is not your subordinate is a 403, and the workflow is never kicked. Without this the graph would be decorative and any instance could drive any other — re-creating from another direction the bypass [coordination][security] Supervision must not escalate authority — a delegation lends a goal, never privileges #185 closes.
   • Depth is derived from the graph, never taken from the caller. A subordinate that could name its own depth would escape the cap by claiming 0.
   • The budget is inherited; only a ROOT delegation opens a pool. One per hop is the per-path copy that makes a tree cost allowance × fanout^depth.
   • The supervisor rides along only as onBehalfOf — audit, never permission. The subordinate runs on its own brain, so [coordination][security] Supervision must not escalate authority — a delegation lends a goal, never privileges #185 holds by construction.

   Delegation is logged under the parent's trace, so a multi-level tree reads as one run — the join choreography normally lacks.

   11 tests, including the two that matter: a non-subordinate target is refused and never starts a workflow, and depth comes from a 2-level graph rather than the request.
6. serge-ivo

   added 2 commits that reference this issue on Aug 4, 2026

   fix(budget): a DELEGATED coding run must draw on the tree's pool (#184,

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   07576b7

   fix(delegation): a Pilot delegation must be checkable (#159)

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   25b3871
7. serge-ivo commented on Aug 4, 2026

   

   serge-ivo

   on Aug 4, 2026

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   Done in 67eb915, with capability routing in c9f093f and checkability in 25b3871. Proven in production: Coder Lead delegated to Repo Coder, run completed done in 1 of 2 iterations. Graph membership, derived depth, inherited budget and onBehalfOf-only authority are all enforced on the delegation path.
8. serge-ivo

   closed this as completedon Aug 4, 2026
9. serge-ivo

   added 2 commits that reference this issue on Aug 12, 2026

   fix(supervision): the roster fits, and the count rides in front of it…

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   a001bac

   fix(coding): a Cloudflare attempt error is classified, reported as an…

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   c64d9f5