shipped-agent-liveness-prober

Status: shipped-beta (framework-side authoring tool) · Ships to: clone — excluded from consumer delivery (setup.d/20-agents.sh:27 case-skip, "M2 probe, #552 sibling") · Fires at: operator-initiated only — header status DORMANT, "never a CI gate, never a required merge step" (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:14-19)

What it is

Session-bound RED→GREEN behavioural liveness probe for the framework's shipped sub-agents: dispatch a fresh subagent without tools (expect fabrication / no tool_uses), then with the agent fully loaded (expect tool_uses > 0 and real file:line citations), and report the delta (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:11). Principle 21's M1 gate (shipped #576) form-checks tools: NAMES are CC-canonical; this M2 probe checks that a validly-named agent actually uses its tools — "Structure is the floor (M1); behaviour is the proof (this M2 probe)" (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:29). Built build-only under T-M2PROBE-A: the RED→GREEN deltas are a design specification, not a verified observation; the first operator run is the honest point of validation (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:21-25).

How it works

• Dormancy. Promotion trigger (§5.2): a 2nd dispatch-fabrication incident (after #551) OR #550 post-install acceptance ships — both UNFIRED as of 2026-06-16; until then the probe is a ready-to-run artifact an operator MAY invoke voluntarily (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:14-19).
• Shipped surface — derived, never hardcoded. The authoritative shipped surface is install.sh §2's for f in "$PKG_ROOT"/agents/*.md loop minus the case skip-arms; the all keyword iterates exactly that verified set (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:43, :71). Boundary that matters: "an authoring-only agent fabricating findings costs the maintainer; a shipped agent fabricating findings costs the consumer" (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:71).
• Per-agent fixtures. For each agent: read agents/<slug>.md frontmatter (tools:, description) and the fixture at tests/fixtures/shipped-agent-liveness/<slug>.md (task-prompt, observable-failure, observable-compliance), quoted verbatim with file:line in the report preamble (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:88-95).
• Two passes, fresh contexts. Pass 1 tool-less (tools: [] — the #551 state) must show fabricated findings or a decline; Pass 2 with the full declared tool set must show tool_uses > 0 plus a real file:line reachable only via a tool call (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:111-130).
• Verdicts. LIVE / BASELINE-DIDN'T-FAIL / WITH-TOOLS-DIDN'T-COMPLY / DISPATCH-INFEASIBLE (PARK) (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:138-141).

Satellites & companions

• USES: principle 21's M1 form-gate as the CI floor it complements; install.sh §2 as the shipped-surface SSOT (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:12).
• ADAPTS: manual-rule-liveness-prober (#115) — same fresh-subagent-per-pass, isolated-context machinery, retargeted from "does this rule change behaviour?" to "does this shipped agent use its declared tools?" (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:195).
• ADDS: the behavioural counterfactual to #551 — M1 caught it by form; this probe would have caught it by behaviour, because with tools: [] the agent IS in its RED state (agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:207-211).

Anchors

• agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:2 — name: shipped-agent-liveness-prober
• agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:3 — description: Probes each shipped sub-agent for behavioural liveness via with/without-tools fresh-subagent dispatch, capturing a RED→GREEN delta …
• setup.d/20-agents.sh:27 — shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md) continue ;; # authoring-only tool (M2 probe, #552 sibling)
• agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:11 — > **Authoritative for:** `shipped-agent-liveness-prober` sub-agent prompt — the session-bound RED→GREEN behavioural liveness probe for the framework's shipped sub-agents …
• agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:14 — > **Status: DORMANT** — not a mandatory step. Promotion trigger (§5.2 of
• agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:29 — The point of this role: principle 21's mechanical gate (M1, shipped #576) proves shipped agents' `tools:` NAMES are CC-canonical — a **form-check**. …
• agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:43 — **Do NOT use a hardcoded list.** The authoritative shipped surface is defined by `install.sh` §2's `for f in "$PKG_ROOT"/agents/*.md` loop …
• agents/shipped-agent-liveness-prober.md:138 — - **LIVE (PASS):** Pass 1 exhibited the `observable-failure` (or a clear decline) AND Pass 2 exhibited the `observable-compliance` with `tool_uses > 0`. …

All anchors at framework pin b069c59328aa8e08671d3a19fd25efa618dfc1c5 (fetched 2026-09-11 from artyhoo/getff staging; ancestry of census pin a1337cb301 verified).