[FEATURE]: Insane. Add independent agents back.

[nmzpy]

Feature hasn't been suggested before.

• I have verified this feature I'm about to request hasn't been suggested before.

Describe the enhancement you want to request

Now if my main agent (.md) doesnt have access to edit / apply_patch, the GENERAL agent it spawns also doesn't have access to it.

I explicitly set edit - deny to some agents so they can focus purely on orchestrating general agents. Why did you make it so that now you can't do that anymore?

If I spawn an agent from the Build agent, GPT-5.5 gets the apply_patch and the editing toolset back.

[github-actions]

This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:

• Subagent parent deny inheritance over-constrains delegated agents with explicit permissions #26700: Subagent parent deny inheritance over-constrains delegated agents with explicit permissions — describes the same orchestrator/worker pattern where parent deny rules override subagent explicit allows
• Bug: Subagents no longer have access to tools (in commander+worker pattern) #26758: Subagents no longer have access to tools (in commander+worker pattern) — identical scenario: commander with deny rules causes subagents to lose their configured tools
• [Bug] Subagent permissions not transitive via task tool — own bash permissions ignored #26747: Subagent permissions not transitive via task tool — own bash permissions ignored — same root cause, subagent inherits parent's deny rules instead of using its own permissions

All three stem from the same regression in 1.14.46 where deriveSubagentSessionPermission() appends parent deny rules into the child session, overriding the subagent's explicit allows.

[lucasbabur]

I have this same problem. All my subagents were voided upon upgrading. I was debugging this for 2-3 hours trying to understand what was happening. This is insane. Sometimes we want to force agents to delegate work. This makes it impossible.

[nmzpy]

I feel you, i had the same reaction when I saw GPT-5.5 saying "Oh, apply_patch is not active so let me use bash with python..."

A lot of ridiculous merges as of late, especially the compaction when you manually type /compact and it automatically makes the agent continue work. Before it was only doing that IF the agent was in-progress, which was way smarter UX.

[kitlangton]

This was fixed in #27201 and should be out in the next release.

The fix keeps Plan Mode’s inherited edit restriction, but stops parent agent self-restrictions like read, bash, and task from erasing a subagent’s own explicit permissions.

Thanks for calling this out. The controller/delegation workflow should work again with the next release.

[OrShmuel22]

This should work with the fix in #27654. The root cause is that parent edit: deny unconditionally overrides subagent edit: allow even when you deliberately delegate. The PR adds a check: if the subagent explicitly declares edit: allow, the parent's deny doesn't propagate to it. Your general agent with edit permissions would keep its edit tool.