v0.17.0

New features

• The agent knows who it is and how its chat is used (#24).
  • AgentSpec.identity ({ name, version?, description? }) adds a "Who you are" section to the system prompt, with the agent's name, version and what it is, plus agent-kit's version.
  • With an identity, the session also offers the agent-kit:agent-help skill, so the agent can answer "how do I resume a conversation?" or "what does Shift+Tab do?" instead of improvising. The skill combines the kit's part of the chat (modes, approvals, keys, slash commands, resuming, --continue, --language), this session's facts, and the agent's own guide (AgentSpec.helpGuide, a markdown file).
  • Without an identity, nothing changes.
• Bash only when a subagent uses it (#25). A session used to get Bash whenever the spec registered subagents. Now it gets it only when a subagent lists it in its tools, or has no tools (and so inherits them all). That saves about 1.9k input tokens per call for agents whose subagents don't use it. Agent and the three subagent gates are unchanged.

Fixes

• The status bar shows cached input apart: 26.6k in (+126.7k cached) / 1.4k out. The "in" count included the context read again from the cache on every call, so it grew several times faster than the context and looked like the context growing. The cached part is left out when the terminal is too narrow. SessionUsage gains cacheReadTokens; inputTokens keeps its meaning.

Documentation

• disallowedTools takes a built-in tool out of the context, but an MCP tool is only blocked: its definition is still sent (#26). "Context and cost" now has what each part of the kit costs per call, and what makes it go away.
• Captain Whiskers sets his identity and ships a help guide, with a new section and screenshot in his guide.

No breaking changes. If you relied on Bash being in the session without any subagent listing it, list it in that subagent's tools.