When a worker hits an environmental failure (sandboxed or filtered
network path, missing binary or key, TLS or proxy interception, missing
runtime permission), nothing today tells it how to stop: transcripts
show turn after turn of retries with different flags, equivalent tools,
or fallback transports, all burning budget against a wall the agent
cannot move.
Changes:
- the ask_operator tool description now covers environmental blocks
explicitly: do not retry or work around; include the exact single
command the operator should run in their own terminal as one
copy-pastable line, plus what to paste back, then wait. The question
parameter description gains the same guidance.
- worker and pentest seeds gain an "Operator handoff on environmental
blocks" block: stop after the first environmental failure, no
flag-hopping, no bypass hunting, one command per ask_operator request,
never batch.
- tests: the tool description must keep the handoff markers
(TestAskOperatorEnvHandoffGuidance) and the executor seeds must keep
the block (TestPromptSeedsCarryOperatorHandoff).
Pattern adapted from bug-bounty-hunting-prompts (MIT), whose operator
handoff rule produced exactly this single-command format.