fix: propagate max-step failures and unify task transcripts (#874)

Co-authored-by: Letta <noreply@letta.com>

src/agent/export.ts

@@ -53,8 +53,12 @@ export async function packageSkills(
           continue;
         }
 
-        // Check if skill exists in known repos (prefer source_url over embedding)
-        const sourceUrl = await findSkillSourceUrl(entry.name);
+        // Check if skill exists in known repos (prefer source_url over embedding).
+        // When an explicit skillsDir is provided, skip network lookup and always
+        // package local files for deterministic behavior (especially in tests).
+        const sourceUrl = skillsDir
+          ? null
+          : await findSkillSourceUrl(entry.name);
 
         const skill: SkillSchema = { name: entry.name };
 

src/agent/subagents/manager.ts

@@ -685,12 +685,15 @@ async function executeSubagent(
         }
       }
 
+      const propagatedError = state.finalError?.trim();
+      const fallbackError = stderr || `Subagent exited with code ${exitCode}`;
+
       return {
         agentId: state.agentId || "",
         conversationId: state.conversationId || undefined,
         report: "",
         success: false,
-        error: stderr || `Subagent exited with code ${exitCode}`,
+        error: propagatedError || fallbackError,
       };
     }