[Bug] Subagent status line JSON missing effort field for non-custom subagents
Status Open
Reported on v2.1.238
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Aug 21, 2026
Bug Description
the subagent status line JSON contains no info about "normal" subagent's effort. effort is only non-empty for "proper" custom subagents that have an effort defined in their agent MD file. It is not clear with which effort subagents are working.
Environment Info
- Platform: linux
- Terminal: konsole
- Version: 2.1.238
- Feedback ID: 2622e644-32d2-4652-b3ed-dfd49d9af588
Output as of 2.1.238:
{
"session_id": "...",
"transcript_path": "...",
"cwd": "...",
"prompt_id": "...",
"columns": 169,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "a9694f99227974bfe",
"type": "local_agent",
"status": "running",
"description": "haiku (low) - Infinite block test 1",
"label": "Backgrounding infinite bash processes",
"startTime": 1787309508060,
"model": "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001",
"contextWindowSize": 200000,
"tokenCount": 21626,
"tokenSamples": [
...
],
"cwd": "...."
},
[...]
{
"id": "aeee17882615c47fe",
"type": "local_agent",
"status": "running",
"description": "haiku (low) - Infinite block test (nested)",
"label": "Reinvoking timeout sleep loop",
"startTime": 1787309763895,
"model": "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001",
"contextWindowSize": 200000,
"tokenCount": 19584,
"tokenSamples": [
...
],
"cwd": "..."
},
[...]
]
}
As you can see, the "effort" field is simply not present.
Looks like this:
<img width="1466" height="103" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8436006c-ba60-4bff-9ddc-74f85a69dc76" />
The "haiku (low)" was only generated due to an instruction in CLAUDE.md to include the effort in the model description - however that is probably hallucinated.
When you spawn a custom subagent:
---
name: test-foobar
description: a test agent
model: sonnet
effort: xhigh
---
You are a test agent used during status line development. You just block indefinitely.
it looks like this:
{
"session_id": "...",
"transcript_path": "...",
"prompt_id": "...",
"columns": 169,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "a30b0dd85fa8869f6",
"type": "local_agent",
"status": "completed",
"description": "test-foobar - Launch test",
"label": "test-foobar - Launch test",
"startTime": 1787310665568,
"model": "claude-sonnet-5",
"effort": "xhigh",
"contextWindowSize": 1000000,
"tokenCount": 20949,
"tokenSamples": [
[...]
],
"cwd": "..."
}
]
}