github / github/copilot-cli

Sub-agents spawned by background agents appear in UI without user notification

Open
#2,493 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
area:agents
Dominant language
Shell
Stars
11.2k
Forks
1.9k
Avg merge
14h 16m
Merged PRs (30d)
6

Description

### Describe the bug

When a background general-purpose agent spawns a child agent,
the child appears in the /tasks panel silently — no chat message,
no explanation of why it was started or what it does.

### Affected version

_No response_

### Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Launch a general-purpose agent in background mode with a complex task
2. The agent internally spawns a sub-agent (e.g. to split work)
3. The sub-agent appears in /tasks panel with a different name/description
4. User has no idea who started it or why

## Actual behavior
Silent appearance in /tasks. User can only discover it via /tasks panel.

### Expected behavior

Any agent launched (directly or by another agent) should post a notification in the chat explaining what it is and who started it.

### Additional context

The parent agent also hung for 18+ minutes (7 tool_calls) with no
timeout or warning, then its child continued working after the parent
was killed.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.