Second, deeper pass over tools/gateway/hermes_cli plus first pass over
the trees wave 1 missed (acp, acp_adapter, skills, computer_use, docker,
dashboard, conformance, monitoring, secret_sources, hermes_state,
providers). Same rubric as wave 1 (AGENTS.md test policy); security,
alternation/caching invariants, issue-number regressions, and E2E kept.
Real test-quality fixes found and rooted out along the way:
- tests/tools/test_command_guards.py made real auxiliary-LLM HTTPS calls
(DEFAULT_CONFIG smart-approval leaked in) — pinned approval
mode=manual via autouse fixture: 17.4s → 0.4s.
- test_model_switch_custom_providers.py / test_user_providers_model_switch.py
silently probed live provider catalogs (~2s/test) — stubbed
cached_provider_model_ids/provider_model_ids/fetch_api_models.
- test_telegram_noise_filter.py: 15-platform copy-paste matrix over
shared gateway.run logic → 3 representative platforms (55s → 3.9s).
- test_gateway_shutdown.py: stop()'s 5s interrupt-deadline loop spun on
MagicMock agents — interrupt.side_effect now clears _running_agents
(22s → 1.0s).
- test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py poll-harness timings shrunk 3-5x
(24s → 1.1s); test_mcp_stability.py backoff/SIGTERM-grace sleeps
patched (15.4s → 2.5s); test_async_delegation.py negative-drain wait
5s → 0.5s.
- test_telegram_init_deadline.py: loop-block margin restored to 1.0s
with rationale comment — the watchdog-dump assertion needs the loop
blocked well past deadline+grace under parallel load (flaked once in
the 40-worker verification run at a 0.2s margin).
Verification: full hermetic suite via scripts/run_tests.sh —
2,438 files, 21,718 tests passed, 0 failed, 293.9s wall.
Suite totals vs original baseline: 46,820 → 19,757 test functions
(−57.8%), wall 583.5s → 293.9s (−50%), subprocess CPU 13,564s → 11,623s.
Batch delegation returned each subagent's full final_response verbatim
into the parent's context. A fan-out of N children could dump 60k+ tokens
at once, blowing the parent's context window and — on rate-limited
providers — triggering a compression/429 death spiral (429 misread as
context-too-large -> window step-down -> retry loop -> conversation dies).
Cap each summary against the parent's *remaining* context headroom split
across the batch (not a magic char count). When trimming, mirror the
web_extract convention: spill the full text to cache/delegation (mounted
into remote backends via credential_files._CACHE_DIRS) and return a
head+tail window (75/25, line-snapped) plus a footer with the exact
read_file offset to page the omitted middle. Both the subagent's opening
AND its closing (outcomes / files-changed / issues, which live at the end)
survive in-context, and nothing is lost — the parent can read_file the
full version on any backend.
delegation.max_summary_chars (default 24000) is a static ceiling layered
on top as belt-and-suspenders for models that ignore 'be concise'; 0
disables it. Child prompt tightened to lead with outcomes / bullets.
Co-authored-by: rc-int <rcint@klaith.com>