[Eduard van Valkenburg (eavanvalkenburg)]

Motivation & Context

The handoff refactor made user replies always return to the agent that requested them. Workflows that use the start
agent to re-evaluate each user turn no longer have a way to opt out of that routing behavior.

This restores a configuration option while preserving the current default.

Description & Review Guide

• What are the major changes? Adds HandoffBuilder.enable_return_to_previous(enabled=True), routes replies through
  the configured start agent when disabled, and adds focused tests and documentation.
• What is the impact of these changes? Existing workflows are unchanged by default. Callers can pass False to
  have the start agent reconsider each subsequent user response before handing off again.
• What do you want reviewers to focus on? The broadcast/cache ordering used to keep every agent synchronized while
  activating the start agent only for the opt-out path.

Related Issue

Closes #3429

Contribution Checklist

• The code builds clean without any errors or warnings
• All unit tests pass, and I have added new tests where possible
• The PR follows the Contribution Guidelines
• This PR is linked to an issue and there is no other open PR for this issue (see Related Issue above).
• This is not a breaking change. If it is a breaking change, add the breaking change label (or add "[BREAKING]" to the title prefix, before or after any language prefix) — a workflow keeps the label and title prefix in sync automatically.

[Copilot]

Copilot review overview

🟡 Changes recommended

The test must verify that the reactivated start agent receives the user response before running.

Get a fresh assessment by requesting another Copilot review.

Review effort: Balanced
Findings: 1

Open (1)

• Assert triage receives user details in disabled-case test · New

What changed in this PR

Adds an opt-out from return-to-previous handoff routing, allowing the start agent to reconsider user responses.

Changes:

• Adds enable_return_to_previous().
• Routes responses through the start agent when disabled.
• Adds documentation and routing tests.

File	Description
_handoff.py	Implements configurable response routing.
test_handoff.py	Tests default and configured routing.
README.md	Documents the new option.

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[github-actions]

MAF Automated Review — Iteration 1

Result: No findings
Scope: full PR (1 commit(s)): 6fecf1731ba3
Model: gpt-5.6-sol-fast

Overview

This PR preserves return-to-previous routing by default and adds an opt-out path that broadcasts the resumed user message before activating the configured start agent. The fully connected workflow topology, per-edge message ordering, start-agent validation, and focused routing tests guard the intended behavior. No Critical, High, or Medium defect remains after reconciliation.

Reviewed the supplied pull-request change set across correctness, security/reliability, architecture, and failure behavior.
No publishable findings remained after source verification for this scope.