fix(codex): explicit model+effort on every spawn, config backstop

Depth-2 child-issued spawns omitted model 2/2 at CLI 0.146; model
without reasoning_effort resets effort to the model default.

skills/subagent-driven-development/SKILL.md

@@ -197,6 +197,17 @@ Everything you paste into a dispatch prompt — and everything a subagent
 prints back — stays resident in your context for the rest of the session
 and is re-read on every later turn. Hand artifacts over as files.
 
+**Waiting on dispatched subagents:** never poll a wait interface with
+short timeouts, and never sit in one silent, open-ended wait either.
+While you have local work — ledger updates, packaging the next review,
+reading reports — keep working; child results arrive on their own.
+When you are genuinely idle, wait in bounded stretches (five to ten
+minutes, where your platform allows), and between stretches post one
+line of status and reconcile your live children: list them, and chase
+any that finished without reporting. A bounded stretch keeps nearly
+all of a long wait's efficiency while guaranteeing a stuck or lost
+child is noticed within minutes, not at the end of the session.
+
 ### 1. Dispatch the implementer
 
 Record BASE (`git rev-parse HEAD`) before dispatching — the review package

skills/using-superpowers/references/codex-tools.md

@@ -36,6 +36,48 @@ disagree.
   spawn allowlist — V2 accepts only V2-capable presets and hard-errors
   on the rest.
 
+## Waiting on children
+
+`wait_agent` is an event subscription, not a poll: a long wait wakes
+the moment a child produces mailbox activity, with the same latency as
+a short one. Short-timeout polling buys nothing and costs a tool call —
+and a context rebill — per poll. In measured sessions, roughly
+two-thirds of all wait calls were short polls that timed out.
+
+- While you still have local work, do not wait at all. A completed
+  child's final answer is pushed into your mailbox and arrives with
+  your next turn.
+- When you are genuinely idle with children outstanding, wait in
+  bounded stretches: `wait_agent` with `timeout_ms` 300000-600000
+  (5-10 minutes). After each stretch — wake or timeout — post one
+  status line, run `list_agents`, and chase any child that finished
+  without reporting. Never stack polls shorter than five minutes; the
+  event subscription wakes a bounded stretch just as fast as a short
+  one.
+- Completion mail cannot wake an idle controller (it is delivered
+  without triggering a turn); covering that idle window is
+  `wait_agent`'s only job. A stretch that times out with no activity
+  is your cue to reconcile, not to shorten the next stretch.
+
+## Model routing on spawns
+
+Every `spawn_agent` you issue — including when you are yourself a
+spawned child running a fan-out — sets `model` AND `reasoning_effort`
+explicitly, per the Model Selection rules of the skill you are
+executing. Setting `model` alone is a trap: the child's effort
+silently resets to that model's default, not to yours.
+
+Ask your human partner to add a machine-level backstop to
+`~/.codex/config.toml` so any spawn that slips through still routes to
+a deliberate tier instead of silently inheriting the session's most
+expensive model:
+
+```toml
+[agents]
+default_subagent_model = "<a mid-tier model from your spawn allowlist>"
+default_subagent_reasoning_effort = "medium"
+```
+
 ## Environment Detection
 
 Skills that create worktrees or finish branches should detect their