yoi/work-items/open/20260529-205540-spawnpod-profile-tool-description/item.md

id	slug	title	status	kind	priority	labels	created_at	updated_at	assignee	legacy_ticket
20260529-205540-spawnpod-profile-tool-description	spawnpod-profile-tool-description	SpawnPod profile selection and templated tool description	open	feature	P2	pod manifest tools workflow	2026-05-29T20:55:40Z	2026-05-30T05:11:43Z	null	null

Background

SpawnPod is becoming the main mechanism for hierarchical orchestration. The workflow model now distinguishes role-specific child Pods: lower orchestrators, coder Pods, and external reviewer Pods. These roles should be selectable by profile, but the current SpawnPod tool has no profile field and no LLM-visible route to discover profile selectors.

A separate ListProfiles tool would expose mostly static or semi-static affordance information as another model action. The desired design is instead to make profile choices part of the SpawnPod tool's own guidance: render the available profile selectors into the tool description, and repeat the same selector list in invalid/ambiguous/no-default diagnostics.

Current implementation notes:

• Tool metadata is defined by llm_worker::tool::ToolMeta; ToolDefinition factories return (ToolMeta, Arc<dyn Tool>) and ToolServerHandle::flush_pending() materializes them before request construction.
• Tool descriptions are currently hard-coded strings/doc comments in each tool factory. crates/pod/src/spawn/tool.rs has a static DESCRIPTION and SpawnPodInput only contains name, instruction, task, and scope.
• SpawnPod currently builds an internal PodManifestConfig directly from selected pieces of the parent resolved manifest plus tool input, then launches the child with hidden --spawn-config-json. It copies the parent model and session trace flag, applies optional instruction override, and uses the delegated scope from the tool call. It does not use profile resolution and it does not copy the parent resolved manifest wholesale.
• Prompt assets are centralized under resources/prompts; Pod-owned prompt injection strings are represented by PodPrompt and rendered by PromptCatalog through minijinja. resources/prompts/internal.toml has build-time coverage against PodPrompt variants.
• Profile discovery/resolution already exists in manifest, though the concrete profile authoring layer is being revised away from Nix-primary semantics. SpawnPod profile selection should use the same effective profile registry/default semantics as the normal launcher path once that resolver is available.

Requirements

• Add an optional profile field to SpawnPodInput.
• SpawnPod.profile accepts three conceptual selector classes:
  • omitted or "default": resolve the effective child default profile;
  • "inherit": derive child config from the spawner's resolved Manifest, extracting only reusable profile-like fields;
  • <slug> / source-qualified selectors such as builtin:<slug>, user:<slug>, project:<slug>: resolve a discovered role profile.
• inherit is distinct from reusing the profile source that created the parent. It means extracting reusable configuration from the parent resolved Manifest. Re-evaluating or reusing the parent's original Profile source is a separate concept and is not required here.
• Make SpawnPod's LLM-facing tool description include the currently discoverable profile selectors, the effective default profile, and the special inherit selector.
• Do not add a separate ListProfiles tool for this feature.
• The profile list in the tool description must come from the same builtin/user/project profile discovery rules used by the profile launcher path.
• If profile discovery fails, the tool should still be registered with a clear diagnostic in its description rather than making Pod startup fail solely because the description could not list profiles.
• If profile is omitted, SpawnPod resolves the effective default profile. With the builtin default profile present, ordinary omission should keep working.
• If profile is invalid, ambiguous, unsupported, or omitted while no default can be resolved, the tool error must include a compact available-profile list, source-qualified suggestions, and mention inherit where appropriate.
• SpawnPod.profile should initially accept registry/default selectors and inherit only: default, inherit, builtin:<name>, user:<name>, project:<name>, and unqualified names only when unambiguous. Raw path selectors, path:<path>, relative paths, absolute paths, and .nix/.lua path-like values are rejected for the tool path.
• SpawnPod.scope remains the only delegated capability. A profile selected through SpawnPod, including inherit, must not be able to expand scope.allow beyond the explicit tool argument.
• SpawnPod.name always overrides any resolved/derived pod.name in the child manifest.
• SpawnPod.instruction, if present, is a typed override for the selected profile's or inherited config's worker.instruction only; it must not replace the whole profile/config.
• Profile-selected spawn should preserve profile-owned role configuration such as model, worker settings, tools/memory/web policy, and prompt pack where applicable, subject to the explicit name and scope overrides.
• inherit should preserve reusable parent-owned configuration such as model, worker settings, compaction, tools/memory/web policy, prompt pack, and session diagnostics where applicable, subject to the explicit name, scope, and optional instruction overrides.
• inherit must not preserve runtime-bound or authority-bearing parent fields: parent pod.name, concrete parent scope.allow/scope.deny, resolved runtime paths, sockets, session/pod-store state, spawned-child registry state, callback addresses, or raw resolved secret material.
• Existing hidden --spawn-config-json remains the internal launch handoff. SpawnPod resolves/merges selected profile data in the parent process and passes the resulting manifest config/snapshot to the child; it should not simply exec insomnia-pod --profile.
• Documentation/workflows should show SpawnPod(profile = "project:coder"), SpawnPod(profile = "project:reviewer"), optionally project:orchestrator, and SpawnPod(profile = "inherit") as explicit choices while keeping scope authority separate from profile role selection.

Tool description templating direction

Use the existing prompt infrastructure rather than scattering another large hard-coded string.

Acceptable implementation shape:

• Add a Pod-owned prompt/catalog entry for the SpawnPod tool description, e.g. spawn_pod_tool_description, with minijinja variables such as available_profiles, default_profile, special_selectors, and profile_diagnostic.
• Render this prompt when registering SpawnPod in register_pod_tools, using the Pod cwd as the profile discovery base.
• Keep the rendered description as ToolMeta.description; the tool metadata still remains session-scoped after registration.
• The same formatter used for the description should be reusable by error diagnostics so invalid profile errors repeat the available selectors.

If a more general tool-description catalog is introduced, keep the initial scope narrow: it must support SpawnPod without forcing every built-in tool to migrate in the same ticket.

Acceptance criteria

• SpawnPod schema exposes optional profile with clear field docs for default, inherit, and profile slug/source-qualified selectors.
• SpawnPod tool description includes a compact available-profile block, default-profile guidance, and the inherit special selector.
• SpawnPod invalid/ambiguous/no-default profile errors include the same compact selector list and tell the model to use a listed selector or inherit.
• SpawnPod(profile = "project:reviewer") resolves the project reviewer profile and applies its role config while replacing pod.name and scope.allow with the explicit SpawnPod values.
• SpawnPod with omitted profile resolves the effective default profile.
• SpawnPod(profile = "inherit") derives child config from the parent resolved Manifest's reusable fields while replacing pod.name, scope.allow, and optional worker.instruction with the explicit SpawnPod values.
• SpawnPod(profile = "./reviewer.lua"), SpawnPod(profile = "path:./reviewer.lua"), legacy .nix path-like selectors, and absolute profile paths are rejected with an explanation that the tool accepts default, inherit, or registry selectors only.
• Ambiguous unqualified profile names fail closed with source-qualified suggestions.
• A profile's or inherited config's scope.allow cannot grant access not present in SpawnPod.scope.
• Existing SpawnPod behavior that matters for lifecycle remains intact: registry reservation/rollback, scope revocation from the spawner, callback wiring, child socket wait, and initial Method::Run confirmation.
• Unit/integration tests cover description rendering, selector formatting, omitted default resolution, inherit, invalid selector diagnostics, profile config application, explicit instruction override, and scope authority replacement.
• Documentation and .insomnia/workflow/ references explain profile-based coder/reviewer/orchestrator spawning without introducing a ListProfiles tool.

Non-goals

• Do not introduce an LLM-callable ListProfiles tool.
• Do not enable arbitrary profile path evaluation through SpawnPod.
• Do not confuse inherit with reusing the parent's original Profile source. inherit is derived from the parent resolved Manifest; parent Profile source reuse can be a later explicit feature if needed.
• Do not revive manifest cascade or generic overlay layers.
• Do not redesign prompt-loader source selection for $user / $workspace profile prompt refs in this ticket unless it is required to keep current behavior correct.
• Do not implement encrypted secret storage; profiles may still contain unresolved typed secret refs as currently documented.