Improve MultiAgentV2 fan-out behavior and TUI summarization
Open 💬 0 comments Opened Jun 23, 2026 by starSumi
Proposal
Codex already has MultiAgentV2 task-path agents and a TUI /agent surface. The current behavior supports multiple subagents, but broad fan-out is hard to follow because the model guidance and terminal presentation are not optimized around a fan-out workflow.
I propose a staged improvement:
- Strengthen MultiAgentV2 guidance so root agents fan out only for independent subtasks, assign disjoint file ownership, and continue useful local work while children run.
- Improve
/agentto show a bounded roll-up of running/completed/errored child agents with stable task-path ordering and short activity previews. - Consider protocol-level batch identity only if the UI cannot reliably group existing subagent activity events.
This avoids a new runtime or multi-pane UI and reuses existing spawn_agent, wait_agent, list_agents, send_message, and followup_task semantics.
Why this path
- MultiAgentV2 already owns task paths, child thread creation, mailbox waiting, and agent listing.
- The TUI already has
multi_agents.rs,/agent, agent picker, and bounded activity previews. - A first-class
spawn_agents/fan_out_agentsbatch tool would duplicate existingspawn_agentvalidation and should be deferred unless maintainers want explicit batch identity.
Related issues found during duplicate search
- #23479 asks for subagent capacity/status preflight before spawn attempts.
- #23749 tracks memory pressure with multiple agents.
- #26822 covers subagents shutting down without delivering results.
- #26200 discusses rendering referenced Codex threads/subagents as clickable chips.
These are related, but I did not find a direct duplicate for improving MultiAgentV2 fan-out behavior plus the /agent roll-up.
Suggested first PR
A minimal first PR can add a local architecture note and, if maintainers agree, follow with a narrower code PR that updates MultiAgentV2 prompt/tool guidance before any protocol changes.