agent-manager · investigation + fix

New sessions were stopping at a dialog

there is a general issue with spinning up new sessions: they often ask stupid things like "do you want to update now" or "do you trust this folder"

Real spawns through the manager, with copied credentials and brand-new workspace folders. The task given at launch was reply with exactly READY, and nothing was typed by hand.

Before — the task never runs

Both panes sit at a trust dialog. READY appears 0 times in either transcript: the work was dispatched and did not start.

codex
> You are in /home/node/local/fr-state3/workspaces/pre-codex
  Do you trust the contents of this directory? Working with untrusted contents comes with higher risk of prompt
  injection. Trusting the directory allows project-local config, hooks, and exec policies to load.
› 1. Yes, continue
  2. No, quit
  Press enter to continue
claude
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Accessing workspace:
 /home/node/local/fr-state3/workspaces/pre-claude
 Quick safety check: Is this a project you created or one you trust? (Like your own code, a well-known open source
 project, or work from your team). If not, take a moment to review what's in this folder first.
 Claude Code'll be able to read, edit, and execute files here.
 Security guide
 ❯ 1. Yes, I trust this folder
   2. No, exit
 Enter to confirm · Esc to cancel

After — straight to work

Same spawn, same folders, nothing typed. Both answer READY.

codex
╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ >_ OpenAI Codex (v0.149.0)                           │
│                                                      │
│ model:       gpt-5.6-sol xhigh   /model to change    │
│ directory:   /home/node/local/…/workspaces/fix-codex │
│ permissions: YOLO mode                               │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
  Tip: You can run any shell command from Codex using ! (e.g. !ls)
› reply with exactly READY
• READY
› Ask Codex to do anything
  gpt-5.6-sol xhigh fast · /home/node/local/fr-state2/workspaces/fix-codex
claude
╭─── Claude Code v2.1.232 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│                                                    │ Tips for getting started                                        │
│                Welcome back Leandro!               │ Ask Claude to create a new app or clone a repository            │
│                                                    │ ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│                       ▐▛███▜▌                      │ What's new                                                      │
│                      ▝▜█████▛▘                     │ Added a `keybindingFlavor` setting: set it to `"readline"` to … │
│                        ▘▘ ▝▝                       │ Plugin marketplaces: `headersHelper` on a url marketplace or a… │
│                                                    │ A catalog entry's `headersHelper` runs only when you install o… │
│  Opus 5 (1M context) · Claude Team · Hugging Face  │ /release-notes for more                                         │
│  /home/node/local/fr-state2/workspaces/fix-claude  │                                                                 │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
❯ reply with exactly READY
● READY
✻ Worked for 1s
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
❯ 
─────────────────────────────────────────────────�──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  ⚠ Transcript saving is off — inherited CLAUDE_CODE_CHILD_SESSION marker · restart with CLAUDE_CODE_FORCE_SESSION_PERS…
  Opus 5 (1M context) · 5h 44% · wk 19%
  ⏵⏵ bypass permissions on (shift+tab to cycle)

What a new session actually asks

Found by launching each CLI clean, not from documentation. Trust is keyed on the absolute path, so a trusted parent does nothing for a new child — which is why this is a per-session problem.

CLIdialogkeyed onrecorded in
bothdo you trust this folder?absolute path hasTrustDialogAccepted / trust_level
claudemanaged settings / telemetry approvalsettings hash remote-settings-consent.json
claudebypass-permissions warningglobal skipDangerousModePermissionPrompt

No update dialog appeared for either CLI, so nothing here touches update checking. The bypass warning's default button is No, exit — a blind Enter on it quits the session, which is why answering it blindly is not a workaround.

What happens to the launch prompt behind a dialog

This decides whether pre-answering is enough, so it was measured rather than assumed.

the launch argumentsurvives — queued, and runs once the dialog is answered, on both CLIs
a prompt sent while the dialog is uppartly eatenreply with exactly SECOND arrived as with exactly SECOND; its Enter dismissed the dialog, which released the queued first prompt
waiting for readiness firstdoes not help — the manager waits for a quiet screen, and a dialog is a quiet screen

Which explains the report exactly: the task "only started after I sent the prompt a second time" — the second send was answering the dialog.