Combo Test: Subgraph Delegation
A subagent can "own" an entire subtree of tasks and work through it autonomously.
A subagent can claim and autonomously complete an entire subtree of dependent tasks by discovering children through task-blocking relationships.
How It Works
Subgraph delegation distributes work by assigning a single agent ownership of a task root and all its descendants. The agent claims the root, discovers dependent tasks through blocks/blockedBy relationships, and executes the subgraph in dependency order. Once the orchestrator spawns the subagent with a root task assignment, it monitors only the root task status; the subagent manages all internal sequencing, parallelism, and child task completion.
What the Test Found
The test created a four-task DAG: root #23, children #24 and #25 (blocked by #23), and grandchild #26 (blocked by #24). A FRONTEND-TEAM subagent was spawned with instructions to claim and complete the subgraph.
Result: ✅ VALIDATED. The agent claimed #23, discovered all four tasks, completed #23 (unblocking #24 and #25), parallelized #24 and #25 completion (no interdependency), then completed #26. All four tasks reached status completed with owner FRONTEND-TEAM. Dependency constraints were correctly enforced: children waited for their blockers; sibling parallelism was safe.
Why It Matters
Subgraph delegation reduces orchestrator coordination overhead by distributing autonomy across team boundaries. Instead of the orchestrator tracking every task state, it spawns one agent per subtree and monitors only the root—lowering orchestrator latency and enabling natural team-based task ownership. Sibling tasks within a subgraph execute in parallel when safe, improving throughput without explicit orchestration scheduling.
Caveats
The test validates the happy path: clean dependency chains, single root, no concurrent external mutations to the task DAG. It does not test cross-subgraph blocking (when subgraph A must wait for external subgraph B), dynamic task insertion, or orphaned child recovery. The subagent must trust the initial DAG structure and have sufficient context to discover all children; incomplete discovery falls back to orchestrator remediation.
- file2.1.16/tests/combo-08-subgraph-delegation/TEST-RESULTS.md
primitive_6434954563fec0d954de489bed255199b87705613b1e2fd064d57fa75a6b679d2856ceafad6b1daa8f982493871b6dd2e81aee89fdce16108000ac1bf5f9ee67edc63976576d911aa28c08f0bf4c256579c3e318e42662ea79713b63b2eb8897bdaf046d07f24a1bb4a5ed64b90c30dSigned with an ed25519 key held off the repo. Anyone can verify against the published public key; nobody without the secret key can forge it. Click verify: it recomputes the signature in your browser. The signature proves integrity and authorship of this exact content — not a third-party timestamp or that the underlying claim is objectively true. signedAt is when the @f3/attest pipeline ran, not when the work happened; the evidence refs carry the source dates.
- instance-of Skill Runtime Class
- introduces (in) 2.1.16 Battle Test (2.1.16) Release
- verifies (in) Combo Test: Subgraph Delegation — runtime test Test