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[Bug]: Promoting a queued subagent follow-up to Steer marks its task stopped #19351
Description
Area
apps/server
Steps to reproduce
- An agent delegates a task with
delegate_task. - While the subagent's turn runs, the agent sends it follow-ups with
t3_thread_send. Each one queues as its own delegated task. - Promote a queued follow-up to Steer.
Expected behavior
The follow-up joins the running turn, the way a direct steer does. Its task stays in progress and settles with that turn's result.
Actual behavior
The follow-up's task settles at once as cancelled. The parent shows a "Stopped" card and gets a completion notice with "Child task ended with status cancelled.", and task_status reports cancelled, while the subagent thread is still working.
Cause
dispatchQueuedMessagePromoteToSteer cancels the queued run and moves its message into the running turn. The follow-up's task stays bound to the cancelled run through delegatedTaskId, so finalizeAppOwnedSubagentTask and delegatedTaskResultPending read that run's cancelled status as the task's outcome.
Impact
Minor bug or occasional failure
Version or commit
main @ 9a01524
Environment
Codex subagent delegated from a Codex parent thread, desktop app.
Activity
juliusmarminge commentedon Oct 21, 2026
Reproduced on current main 70e5e384da, Linux web dev app, Codex parent and child.
The missing prerequisite is a completed original delegation: after that completes, send a new long-running message to the same child with
t3_thread_send(mode: queue), queue another follow-up, then click Steer on the queued row. The follow-up immediately shows Stopped, andtask_statusreturnscancelled, while the child's running turn continues.During the original delegation's first turn, the same queued send did not receive a separate task ID; promoting that message left the original task running.
Before promotion:
After promotion:
juliusmarminge commentedon Oct 22, 2026
The bug is reproduced, but the candidate orchestration fix is incomplete. Review confirmed two remaining agent-facing paths: a blocking task wait can still return
cancelledbetween target completion and parent settlement, and result-transfer lookup/acknowledgement still follows the cancelled queued run.Further implementation is stopped at the automated triage flow's MCP-surface boundary for maintainer review. The issue remains open; no fix PR was published.
juliusmarminge commentedon Oct 22, 2026
Fresh reproduction on main 8acbefefc5, Linux web dev app, Codex parent and child. After the initial delegation completed, I queued a long-running send and a follow-up to the same child, then clicked Steer. The follow-up immediately showed Stopped while the target run continued.
task_statusreturnedcancelled/result_availablewith “Child task ended with status cancelled.” The joined target later completed withFOLLOWUP_DONE.Recording of queue → Steer → stopped parent card.
Existing fix #19352 is being preserved and checked against current main.