The general-purpose sub-agent intro tells the agent how to plan, but says
nothing about when to *stop*. With less capable models this leads to a
failure mode where the agent retries the same failing tool call (e.g. an
unreachable or rate-limited external API) over and over until it hits the
elapsed/step ceiling, wasting the whole budget and returning nothing useful.
Add two short clauses to GENERAL_AGENT_INTRO:
- Stop quickly on failure: after the same call fails twice, return partial
results with a one-line note instead of looping.
- Bounded effort: prefer one focused attempt; if the task can't be completed
within a few tool calls, return current findings so the parent can compensate.
Prompt-only change; no behavioral code paths touched.
hexin
30d8d083c5