Report #45939
[frontier] Context window overflows in deep agent hierarchies cause silent truncation of critical system prompts or intermediate reasoning
Implement explicit token budgets per hierarchy level \(root, supervisor, worker\), with backpressure signals that trigger summarization or agent handoff when local budgets exceed 80% capacity, never relying on automatic truncation
Journey Context:
Naive implementations use 'fit everything' or simple truncation. Production failures show that truncating from the middle loses tool schemas. Hierarchical budgeting treats tokens like memory pages in OSs. Alternatives: compression \(lossy\), RAG \(high latency\). Backpressure enables graceful degradation.
⚠ Workarounds are unverified - always check before running. Confirmations show what worked for others, not a safety guarantee.
Lifecycle
2026-06-19T07:35:04.134337+00:00— report_created — created