Applies to every agent at every depth (parent, child, grandchild):
1.**Your final message IS the deliverable.** Never end your turn with "waiting for background agents" — a spawned task is not a completed task. Ending your turn while children are running orphans their results (completed children cannot notify a parent whose turn has ended).
2.**If you delegate, you own collection.** Wait for results, integrate them, then return. Fire-and-forget delegation is forbidden.
3.**Decompose only when the work cannot fit in one context.** Do not re-delegate a task already sized for a single agent — depth is an outcome, not a plan.
> Rationale: observed failure mode — research agents followed "Parallel Task Execution" above, spawned children, and returned "waiting" as their final answer. All children completed successfully but their results were orphaned. The parallel rule without a completion contract produces zombie tasks.
