What happens
plugins/discovery/agents/researcher.md declares skills: [discovery:research] in its frontmatter, and that skill's SKILL.md carries a preload_token sentinel. Across a five-agent fan-out, no agent received the preload.
The sentinel itself worked — it is designed to make a missing preload detectable, and it did exactly that. The failure is in the preload path.
Why it matters
The researcher agent is dispatched precisely so the research discipline runs in a fresh context. If the skill it declares never loads, each agent runs without the discipline it was spawned to apply, and nothing in the output says so. The result looks like research and is not governed by the research contract.
This was found while doing unrelated work — five agents were dispatched, and the sentinel's absence in all five is what surfaced it. It is not a one-agent flake.
Evidence
plugins/discovery/agents/researcher.md — frontmatter declares skills: [discovery:research]plugins/discovery/skills/research/SKILL.md — carries the preload_token sentinel- Observed: 5 of 5 dispatched agents, no sentinel present in any
Not yet established
- Whether the failure is specific to the
discovery plugin's declaration, to agent-scoped skills: frontmatter generally, or to the harness version in use at the time.
- Whether a directly-invoked (non-dispatched) agent preloads correctly — only the fan-out path was observed.
Both are worth establishing before a fix, since they point at different layers.
Related
No linked issue.
What happens
plugins/discovery/agents/researcher.mddeclaresskills: [discovery:research]in its frontmatter, and that skill'sSKILL.mdcarries apreload_tokensentinel. Across a five-agent fan-out, no agent received the preload.The sentinel itself worked — it is designed to make a missing preload detectable, and it did exactly that. The failure is in the preload path.
Why it matters
The
researcheragent is dispatched precisely so the research discipline runs in a fresh context. If the skill it declares never loads, each agent runs without the discipline it was spawned to apply, and nothing in the output says so. The result looks like research and is not governed by the research contract.This was found while doing unrelated work — five agents were dispatched, and the sentinel's absence in all five is what surfaced it. It is not a one-agent flake.
Evidence
plugins/discovery/agents/researcher.md— frontmatter declaresskills: [discovery:research]plugins/discovery/skills/research/SKILL.md— carries thepreload_tokensentinelNot yet established
discoveryplugin's declaration, to agent-scopedskills:frontmatter generally, or to the harness version in use at the time.Both are worth establishing before a fix, since they point at different layers.
Related
No linked issue.