/** * AGT Scanner — Agent-listing always-loaded token budget * * Claude Code injects a listing of every active agent's name+description into the * system prompt so it knows which subagents it can delegate to. That listing is * re-sent on EVERY turn, whether or not a delegation happens — so with many * installed agents it is a large always-loaded cost (on a heavily-plugged machine * the dominant single always-loaded source). * * Detection: * CA-AGT-NNN per-agent description over the soft bloat cap (low, advisory) * CA-AGT-NNN aggregate agent-listing estimate exceeds the listing budget (low) * * Per-agent advisories are emitted FIRST (mirroring SKL 001→002). They are a * soft bloat heuristic (the 500-char threshold TOK pattern F uses for SKILL.md * descriptions), NOT a truncation finding — agents have no verified per- * description cap, so nothing is dropped; the description is simply re-sent in * full every turn. * * INTELLECTUAL-HONESTY CONTRACT (the reason this is `low`, not a hard finding): * unlike the skill listing, the agent-listing mechanism is NOT documented (agents * are absent from Claude Code's published context breakdown). So the finding is an * INFERRED, UPPER-BOUND ESTIMATE, the budget is a config-audit heuristic (no * documented agent allotment) anchored on a conservative 200k window, and the * evidence discloses all of that. The cap, budget, and enumerate-and-measure step * live in `lib/agent-listing-budget.mjs` — AGT only constructs the finding. * * Zero external dependencies. */ import { finding, scannerResult } from './lib/output.mjs'; import { SEVERITY } from './lib/severity.mjs'; import { AGGREGATE_BUDGET_TOKENS, BUDGET_CALIBRATION_NOTE, PER_AGENT_DESC_SOFT_CAP, measureActiveAgentListing, } from './lib/agent-listing-budget.mjs'; const SCANNER = 'AGT'; /** * Main scanner entry point. * * @param {string} _targetPath unused (agent listing is HOME-scoped) * @param {object} _discovery unused (ignores project discovery) */ export async function scan(_targetPath, _discovery) { const start = Date.now(); const findings = []; const { agents, aggregate } = await measureActiveAgentListing(); // Per-agent advisory (emitted FIRST so the common "long agent + aggregate" // case reads 001=per-agent, 002=aggregate, mirroring SKL). This is a soft // heuristic, NOT a truncation finding — agents have no verified per-description // cap, so the framing is "this is large and re-sent every turn", never "Claude // Code drops the tail". for (const agent of agents) { if (agent.descLength <= PER_AGENT_DESC_SOFT_CAP) continue; const sourceLabel = agent.source === 'plugin' ? `plugin:${agent.pluginName}` : 'user'; findings.push(finding({ scanner: SCANNER, severity: SEVERITY.low, title: 'Agent description is long (re-sent every turn in the always-loaded listing)', description: `Agent "${agent.name}" (${sourceLabel}) has a description of ${agent.descLength} ` + `characters (>${PER_AGENT_DESC_SOFT_CAP}). Claude Code injects every active agent's ` + 'name+description into the agent listing on every turn so it knows which subagents it ' + 'can delegate to, so every character of this description re-enters context each turn ' + 'whether or not you delegate. Unlike the skill listing there is no verified ' + 'per-description cap, so nothing is dropped — this is a bloat advisory, not a ' + 'hard-cap finding.', file: agent.path, evidence: `description_chars=${agent.descLength}; soft_cap=${PER_AGENT_DESC_SOFT_CAP} ` + `(heuristic, same bloat threshold TOK pattern F uses for SKILL.md descriptions; agents ` + `have NO verified per-description cap); agent="${agent.name}"; source=${sourceLabel}`, recommendation: 'Trim the description toward its trigger phrases / "when to use this agent" cues and move ' + 'long examples into the agent body, or disable the plugin if you never delegate to this ' + 'agent (the whole agent block then leaves the always-loaded listing).', category: 'token-efficiency', })); } if (aggregate.overBudget) { findings.push(finding({ scanner: SCANNER, severity: SEVERITY.low, title: 'Aggregate agent listing may exceed the always-loaded budget', description: `The ${aggregate.scanned} active agents carry about ${aggregate.aggregateTokens} tokens of ` + 'name+description text that Claude Code injects every turn so it knows which subagents it can ' + `delegate to — above the ${AGGREGATE_BUDGET_TOKENS}-token budget this scanner anchors on a 200k ` + 'context window. Every one of those tokens is re-sent on every turn whether or not you delegate. ' + 'Note: unlike the skill listing, the agent-listing always-loaded mechanism is inferred (not ' + 'documented), so this is an upper-bound estimate (see evidence).', evidence: `active_agents_scanned=${aggregate.scanned}; description_chars=${aggregate.aggregateChars}; ` + `description_tokens~${aggregate.aggregateTokens}; budget@200k=${AGGREGATE_BUDGET_TOKENS} tok; ` + `over_by~${aggregate.overBy} tok - ${BUDGET_CALIBRATION_NOTE}`, recommendation: 'Shrink the always-loaded agent listing: disable plugins whose agents you do not use (the whole ' + 'agent block leaves the listing), remove dead user agents from ~/.claude/agents/, and trim long ' + 'agent descriptions toward their trigger phrases.', category: 'token-efficiency', })); } return scannerResult(SCANNER, 'ok', findings, aggregate.scanned, Date.now() - start); }