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Blog Post 28 — PR #72: Fix Grok Dispatch Prompt Flag

Series: Building synlynk — the OS for multi-agent development
PR: #72 fix/grok-dispatch-prompt-flag
Version: patch on v0.9.7 baseline
Date: 2026-06-27

Where We Were

v0.9.7 shipped Grok as a first-class fourth agent peer with full baseline registration, dispatch flags (--always-approve), and extract_tokens nested JSON support. Grok was treated as a prompt_via_arg agent — meaning it receives its prompt as a flag argument rather than via stdin. That flag was -p (short for --single), placed in non_interactive_flags alongside the agent's other CLI switches.

What Broke

Any attempt to dispatch a task to Grok produced:

error: a value is required for '--single <PROMPT>' but none was supplied

The root cause: the dispatch shell command builder appended "$PROMPT" at the end of the full flag list. For Grok, that list was ["-p", "--always-approve", "--output-format", "json"], producing:

grok -p --always-approve --output-format json "$PROMPT"

Grok's CLI parser sees -p / --single as a flag that requires an inline value and attempts to consume the next token (--always-approve) as that value. But --always-approve starts with --, so the parser rejects it as a flag value and leaves --single valueless. $PROMPT ends up in the positional slot, not as --single's argument. The fix isn't to reorder the list — it's to separate the prompt-introducing flag from the non-interactive flags entirely.

What Shipped

prompt_flag key in AGENT_CAPABILITY_BASELINES

A new optional key separates the "prompt hand-off flag" from the agent's other non-interactive switches:

"agy": {
    "cli": "agy",
    "non_interactive_flags": [],   # was: ["-p"]
    "prompt_flag": "-p",           # placed last, immediately before "$PROMPT"
    "prompt_via_arg": True,
    ...
},
"grok": {
    "cli": "grok",
    "non_interactive_flags": [],   # was: ["-p"]
    "prompt_flag": "--single",     # long form, placed last
    "prompt_via_arg": True,
    "dispatch_flags": ["--always-approve"],
    ...
},

All four prompt_via_arg call sites updated

The shell command builder now appends prompt_flag as the final element before "$PROMPT":

grok --always-approve --output-format json --single "$PROMPT"

The four sites fixed: _run_agent_sync(), dispatch_agent(), the daemon worker loop (line ~1700), and cmd_consult() (line ~3046).

Two new assertion tests

  • test_grok_dispatch_single_flag_placed_before_prompt — asserts --single appears after --always-approve and directly before "$PROMPT" in the generated shell command.
  • test_agy_dispatch_prompt_flag_placed_before_prompt — same ordering contract for agy's -p flag.
  • test_agent_capability_baselines_includes_grok updated to assert prompt_flag == "--single" rather than "-p" in non_interactive_flags.

514 tests pass.

What This Achieves

Grok task dispatch now works end-to-end. The prompt_flag key is a clean extension point — any future agent with a similar "value-required flag" pattern (e.g. codex --message) can use the same mechanism without touching dispatch logic.

Next Goalpost

The dispatch layer is now correct for all four agents. Next up: BS-7 brainstorm (skill pack interoperability + 4-round benchmark) scheduled for 2026-06-28/29, followed by the BS-5 website implementation sprint.

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