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Nested Subagent Fails Silently in 3-Layer Deep Chain (Works Fine in 2-Layer) #23091
Description
Description
A subagent called at depth 3 (parent → child → grandchild) fails silently without any error message. The issue does not occur at depth 2 (parent → child). The problem began appearing on 2026-04-17, while everything worked normally the previous day.
The grandchild agent receives the prompt successfully (child session window appears), enters a "thinking" phase, and then abruptly terminates without any error or output — not even a single tool call or text response.
Plugins
none
OpenCode version
v1.4.7
Steps to reproduce
1.Create a main agent that uses the task tool to call a child subagent.
2.In the child subagent's prompt, instruct it to further call a grandchild subagent via the task tool.
3.Give the grandchild subagent a simple task (e.g., "read a file and summarize").
4.Observe the behavior: the grandchild subagent starts, thinks for a few seconds, then disappears with no error.
Screenshot and/or share link
Operating System
Windows11
Terminal
Windows terminal
Activity
mguttmann commentedon Jun 13, 2026
We ran into this too. In our reference implementation (proposal #32166, PR #32167) the depth-3 silent failure is gone: the root cause on our side was
task_idresume targeting a non-direct-child session, which produced an unparented/silent run. Resume is now restricted to direct children, and over-depth spawns fail loudly with a typedSubagentDepthErrorinstead of dying silently — chains of 3+ levels (up to 5) work and are covered by tests.github-actions commentedon Aug 13, 2026
To stay organized issues are automatically closed after 60 days of no activity. If the issue is still relevant please open a new one.