@argszero/cordis-plugin-subagent-effort

Per-delegation reasoning effort for deepseek-harness (dsh) subagents.

Closes one gap end to end: @deepseek-ai/dsh-tool-subagent accepts config-level agentOptions and forwards them into the child's AgentOptions, but the agent loop's request builder only reads provider / model / maxTokens from AgentOptions — a reasoningEffort declared there was silently ignored (the model never saw it, no error). This plugin fixes the consumption side and adds a per-call effort tool.

What it does

1. Effort plumbing — extends the merge-extensible AgentOptions interface with reasoningEffort and injects it into every request of that agent via the agent/request waterfall. Config-declared effort (e.g. tool-subagent's agentOptions.reasoningEffort) now actually reaches the adapter.
2. Per-call tool — registers subagent_effort (configurable), a foreground subagent tool accepting reasoning_effort (off | low | high | max, the DeepSeek adapter vocabulary) and an optional model override per call, forwarded as child agentOptions.

Install

# add to your dsh profile (the dsh.bundle declaration mounts it as a profile layer)
pnpm add @argszero/cordis-plugin-subagent-effort

Set the provider in your profile's cordis.patch.yml (last write wins per row):

- set:
    - id: subagent-effort
      config:
        provider: spawn          # your ctx.subagents provider name
        # toolName: subagent_effort
        # defaultReasoningEffort: high

Config

key	type	default	meaning
provider	string	— (required)	the ctx.subagents provider name to delegate on (e.g. spawn, fork, acp)
toolName	string	subagent_effort	model-facing tool name
defaultReasoningEffort	'off' | 'low' | 'high' | 'max'	provider default	effort applied when a call omits reasoning_effort

Usage

Config-level effort (fixes the silent drop)

With @deepseek-ai/dsh-tool-subagent configured with agentOptions, the effort now reaches the child's requests:

- set:
    - id: subagent
      config:
        provider: spawn
        agentOptions:
          reasoningEffort: high

Without this plugin that value was accepted and silently ignored.

Per-call effort (new tool)

The subagent_effort tool lets the model vary the thinking budget per delegation:

{
  "description": "verify the proof",
  "prompt": "Check the induction step carefully…",
  "reasoning_effort": "max"
}

Optional model overrides the child's model for that delegation.

Design notes

• The tool mirrors @deepseek-ai/dsh-tool-subagent's provider lifecycle: it registers when the configured provider appears and unregisters when it leaves.
• The agent/request listener is conservative: only agents whose options explicitly carry reasoningEffort are touched; every other request passes through unchanged.
• Foreground-only by design — background/continuable delegation is available from the built-in subagent tool; this plugin is about effort control.

Development

npm install
npm run build        # tsc → lib/
node smoke.mjs       # loads the plugin on a real Cordis context and verifies
                     # tool registration, request injection, and option forwarding

License

MIT