Agent tool docstring references SendMessage for resuming subagents, but SendMessage is not available in this runtime
Summary
The Agent tool's documentation includes:
"To continue a previously spawned agent, use SendMessage with the agent's ID or name as the to field — that resumes it with full context. A new Agent call starts a fresh agent with no memory of prior runs, so the prompt must be self-contained."
This text reads as guidance for resuming a truncated/incomplete subagent run. However, SendMessage is not registered as a tool in this runtime:
ToolSearch query="select:SendMessage" → "No matching deferred tools found"
There is no available mechanism to actually continue a previously spawned agent. The only option is to Agent(...) again with a self-contained prompt — i.e., a fresh agent that re-discovers any prior state from disk.
Reproduction
- Inside a Claude Code session, attempt to use
ToolSearchwithquery: "select:SendMessage", max_results: 1. - Observe the response:
No matching deferred tools found. - Read the
Agenttool docstring — note the SendMessage reference.
Expected
Either:
- (a)
SendMessageis added/exposed in this runtime so the documented capability works; or - (b) The docstring is updated to remove the SendMessage reference and document the actual recovery flow (e.g., "if a subagent terminates incomplete, dispatch a new agent with a continuation prompt; rely on filesystem state for recovery").
Why this matters
Combined with the related issue about background agents being truncated at ~20–30 tool uses (filed separately), there is currently no in-runtime way to recover a partially-completed agent's work other than:
- Inspect the filesystem for any partial outputs the agent wrote
- Manually craft a new prompt that picks up from that state
- Dispatch a fresh agent
The advertised SendMessage path would be much cleaner if it existed.
Environment
- Claude Code CLI
- Linux (WSL2)
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