Nudge once when assistants print tool-call markup as text

Models sometimes emit <tool_call><function=...> wrappers as
assistant text instead of real tool_call blocks. Catch that narrow
shape, give one corrective nudge per no-real-tool epoch without
counting it as incomplete-report narration, then fall through to the
existing report policy. Thinking blocks and arbitrary XML stay out of
scope; the epoch resets only on genuine tool activity or a parent
follow-up.

Author: TheGreatAxios

src/subagent/nudge-director.ts

@@ -311,6 +311,24 @@ export class SubAgentDirector extends DefaultDirector {
         this.thrashState = nextThrashState(this.thrashState, content);
       }
 
+      if (
+        !hasToolCalls &&
+        !this.verbatimToolCallNudgeFired &&
+        hasVerbatimToolCallMarkup(content)
+      ) {
+        this.verbatimToolCallNudgeFired = true;
+        this.interventions({
+          id: "verbatim-tool-call",
+          class: "nudge",
+          state: this.interventionState(),
+          detail: "assistant emitted explicit tool-call markup as text",
+        });
+        return [
+          capabilities.checkpoint("subagent-verbatim-tool-call-nudge"),
+          inferWithSubAgentNudge(capabilities, VERBATIM_TOOL_CALL_NUDGE),
+        ];
+      }
+
       const stop = evaluateSubAgentStop({
         hasToolCalls,
         thrashState: this.thrashState,