fix(client-runtime): stop counting the workflow coordinator as a working agent

[artieeg]

Closes #5807

What changed

deriveAgentPanelModel counted the workflow coordinator as one of the agents doing work. A workflow running a single member reported two:

• composer banner: "2 agents working in the background"
• Agents panel footer: "2 working · 1 settled"
• inline spawn card: "Spine · 1 working" ← the only correct one

The tally loop in packages/client-runtime/src/state/subagentRuntime.ts iterated every roster entry, including the coordinator (kind === "workflow"), which stays running for the whole run. So liveCount = runningCount + waitingCount was always one higher than the number of agents actually working.

liveCount now applies the same coordinator-exclusion rule the totalTokens sum four lines below already used: skip a coordinator that has members. A memberless coordinator still counts, so a workflow that has not spawned its first member — or is between phases — does not read as zero agents.

runningCount / waitingCount still count every roster entry, preserving the existing bucket-sum invariant (idle + running + waiting + settled === roster.length). AgentsPanel's footer switches to liveCount so both surfaces agree with the inline card.

Why it should exist

The banner is the only visible Stop affordance for background work, so its count is what a user reads to decide whether anything is still running. It disagreed with the two other surfaces in the same view. With N concurrent workflows the banner is off by N, and a workflow whose members have all settled between phases reads "1 agent working" when zero are.

Note the inline card is unaffected and stays correct: "Kicked off 2 subagents" is the batch size (how many were spawned), not a live count.

Before / after

Identical fixture, one member running and one settled. Only the two counts differ.

	Banner	Panel footer
Before	2 agents working in the background	● 2 working · 1 settled
After	1 agent working in the background	● 1 working · 1 settled

Unchanged in both: inline card Kicked off 2 subagents · ride-shelf-v2 — Spine · 1 working, panel header 1/2 settled, RECON 1 done, SPINE 1 active · 0 done.

Before:

After:

Tests

Two cases added to subagentRuntime.test.ts:

• coordinator excluded — liveCount is 1 while runningCount is 2
• memberless coordinator still counts as 1, so a mid-spawn workflow does not read as zero

Verified red/green: with the source change reverted the first test fails expected 2 to be 1; with it applied 48/48 pass. vp lint and tsgo --noEmit clean for both packages.

Scope

3 files, +35 / −5. No behavior change outside the two count readouts.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

---

Note

Low Risk
UI-only count logic in client-runtime with targeted tests; no auth, data, or server behavior changes.

Overview
liveCount no longer treats workflow coordinators as working agents when they already have member rows, so the composer banner, panel footer, and inline cards agree (e.g. one running member reads as 1 working, not 2).

In deriveAgentPanelModel, liveCount is computed in the roster loop instead of runningCount + waitingCount. Live agents (running, pending, waiting) count toward liveCount unless they are a workflow coordinator with members—the same rule already used for totalTokens. A coordinator with no members still counts, so mid-spawn or between-phase runs do not show zero.

The Agents panel footer now displays model.liveCount directly. runningCount / waitingCount are unchanged and still sum to roster size with idle and settled.

Tests cover coordinator exclusion vs runningCount, and memberless coordinators still contributing liveCount of 1.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 17a1a6f. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

Note

[!NOTE]

Fix liveCount in deriveAgentPanelModel to exclude workflow coordinators that have members

• liveCount previously equaled runningCount + waitingCount, which included workflow coordinators even when they duplicate work already counted via their members.
• deriveAgentPanelModel now computes liveCount independently: non-workflow agents count if running, pending, or waiting; coordinators only count when they have no members.
• The AgentsPanel footer now uses model.liveCount directly instead of summing runningCount + waitingCount.
• Behavioral Change: the working-agents count shown in the UI will be lower in workflows where coordinators have active members.

^{Macroscope summarized 17a1a6f.}

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[macroscopeapp]

Approvability

Verdict: Approved be6bf47

A straightforward bug fix that corrects an inflated agent count in the UI by excluding workflow coordinators from the "working" tally. The change follows an existing pattern in the same file, is well-documented in code comments, and includes comprehensive unit tests.

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[juliusmarminge]

Closing as superseded by #6672, which merged and fixes the same underlying issue (#5807).

Both PRs patch deriveAgentPanelModel's coordinator double-count. #6672's fix is a strict superset of this one: it hoists a single continue that excludes a workflow coordinator (when it has members) from the whole status tally loop — runningCount, waitingCount, idleCount, settledCount, liveCount, and totalTokens — whereas this PR only corrects liveCount and left runningCount/waitingCount still counting the coordinator (relying on the panel switching to liveCount for display).

Rebasing this branch onto current main produces a real conflict in subagentRuntime.ts/subagentRuntime.test.ts against #6672's already-merged fix — confirming the overlap. Thanks for the report and the fix here; #6672 covers it. 🙏