fix(tools): resolve a coworker that a model spelled as a quoted list

[Lesereingrape]

Related issue

Fixes #7614

Summary

_get_coworker() already knows that a weak model may hand over a list where a string was expected, and unwraps [...] to its first entry — but it leaves that entry's quotes in place, and role matching (sanitize_agent_name(), same file) strips " only. So the JSON spelling ["researcher"] delegates fine while the Python-repr spelling ['researcher'] — what str(list) produces — comes back as "coworker mentioned not found" while listing that very role as available:

coworker='["Senior Researcher"]'             -> delegates
coworker="['Senior Researcher']"             -> "coworker mentioned not found… - senior researcher"
coworker="['Senior Researcher', 'Analyst']"  -> same
coworker="'Senior Researcher'"               -> same

The unwrap now strips the wrapping quotes (and surrounding whitespace) once, after it, which covers the list form and the quoted-scalar form together for both DelegateWorkTool and AskQuestionTool, since they share this method.

Deliberately not done: teaching sanitize_agent_name() to drop ' too. Its own docstring ("quotes removed") invites that reading, but the function is applied to the agents' real role names as well as to the model's argument, so a role containing an apostrophe would stop matching. _get_coworker() only ever sees the incoming argument.

Behavior is unchanged for every spelling that works today: .strip() and .strip("'\"") are no-ops on a bare name, on [researcher], and on ["researcher"] (the double quotes were already removed later, and the two paths now agree).

Verification

• Tests added or updated for the changed behavior

• Relevant tests and quality checks pass locally

• New test_delegate_work_resolves_coworker_spellings, parametrized over the five spellings, with Agent.execute_task stubbed so no LLM or cassette is involved. On 3831e8b: 2 failed, 3 passed — the two single-quote spellings fail, and the three controls (researcher, [researcher], ["researcher"]) pass both before and after, which is the no-regression evidence. On this branch: 5 passed.

• uv run pytest lib/crewai/tests/tools/agent_tools/test_agent_tools.py -q → 13 passed (the 8 pre-existing VCR-replay tests included).

• Blast radius: lib/crewai/tests/tools + lib/crewai/tests/agents run on the base and on this branch, fail-sets diffed → exactly the 2 new cases flip, 0 regressions. 32 failures remain identical on both sides in this environment (crewai_files is not installed here, plus the platform/a2a suites that need it); CI installs the full workspace.

• uv run ruff check / ruff format --check → clean on the changed source. uv run mypy → no error in base_agent_tools.py (the 10 reported errors are the pre-existing no-any-unimported findings in crew_docling_source.py).

Additional context

The comment above the matching code spells out why the tolerance exists — "less-powerful LLM's have difficulty producing valid JSON" — so a single-quoted argument is squarely inside the case this branch was written for, and it is the half that was missed. The user-visible symptom is the loop where the tool refuses a role and then prints it as an allowed option, which a model usually retries by passing the bare name; so it costs a wasted tool call rather than breaking the crew outright.

Follow-up this PR does not attempt: coworker[1:-1].split(",")[0] silently drops every entry after the first, so ['Researcher', 'Analyst'] never considers Analyst. Splitting a quoted name on , is also wrong for a role that contains a comma. Both are about which coworker a multi-entry list should pick, i.e. a design call rather than a missed guard, so they belong in their own issue if maintainers want them addressed.

Authored with an AI coding assistant. .github/CONTRIBUTING.md requires the llm-generated label for agent-authored contributions and external contributors cannot apply it here — maintainers, please add it.

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Note

Low Risk
Small input-normalization change in shared coworker parsing for delegate/ask tools; existing spellings stay no-ops and behavior is covered by new tests.

Overview
Fixes coworker resolution when models pass Python-style quoted list strings (e.g. ['researcher']) to agent delegation tools.

After _get_coworker() unwraps bracketed list forms, it now strips surrounding whitespace and wrapping '/" on the chosen entry. That aligns single-quoted spellings with JSON-style ["researcher"] before role matching, without changing sanitize_agent_name() (which would break roles with apostrophes).

Adds a parametrized test so DelegateWorkTool resolves bare names, bracket forms, and both quote styles to the same agent.

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The change normalizes coworker values by removing surrounding whitespace and single or double quotes. A parameterized test verifies delegation for direct, list-style, JSON-style, and Python-repr spellings.

Changes

Coworker resolution

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Normalize coworker values and validate delegation lib/crewai/src/crewai/tools/agent_tools/base_agent_tools.py, lib/crewai/tests/tools/agent_tools/test_agent_tools.py	_get_coworker strips whitespace and wrapping single or double quotes after list extraction. The parameterized test verifies five coworker spellings resolve to the researcher agent and return "answered".

Priority: ➖ Normal

Severity of issue fixed: Medium

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to e84ec

The supported coworker spellings resolve through the shared normalization path, with no concrete behavior regression identified. The change is ready to merge after normal checks.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3 | ❌ 2

❌ Failed checks (2 warnings)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Linked Issues check	⚠️ Warning	The change in BaseAgentTool._get_coworker() strips whitespace and single or double wrapping quotes after list extraction. This implements the required normalization for both shared tools in issue #7…	Add a parametrized test case for a quoted scalar coworker value, such as "'researcher'", and verify that it resolves to the intended agent.
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 40.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 5 functions across 2 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely describes the main change: resolving coworker values provided as quoted lists.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description includes the related issue, a detailed summary, verification results, regression information, and additional context. It documents the changed behavior and test coverage clearly.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The production change updates the shared coworker normalization, and the added test verifies delegation spellings required by issue #7614. No unrelated production behavior or unrelated file change is …

Full details: Linked Issues check

Explanation

The change in BaseAgentTool._get_coworker() strips whitespace and single or double wrapping quotes after list extraction. This implements the required normalization for both shared tools in issue #7614. The regression test covers bare, bracketed, JSON-list, Python-repr list, and multi-item Python-repr list values, but it does not cover the required quoted scalar form such as 'researcher'.

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create a new PR

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[Lesereingrape]

Heads-up for maintainers so this does not get reviewed twice: #7620 (opened a few hours after this one, same issue #7614) fixes the same defect in sanitize_agent_name so both quote styles are stripped on both sides of the comparison, while this commit strips wrapping quotes at the extraction point in _get_coworker.

They are equivalent for every spelling in the issue. The strip here sits in the if coworker: branch, not inside if is_list:, so a plain quoted scalar (coworker="'Senior Researcher'") resolves too, and .strip("'\"") only removes wrapping quotes, so a role whose own name contains an apostrophe is unaffected.

Either one closes #7614 — merging one and closing the other is fine by me. If the sanitizer route is preferred, the parametrized spelling table in this PR's test (researcher, [researcher], ["researcher"], ['researcher'], ['researcher', 'writer']) is copy-pasteable into #7620 as extra coverage.

[Lesereingrape]

Two contributor-side items I cannot close myself — both need a maintainer with write access.

1. CI has not been allowed to run on this PR. On the current head, seven workflow runs are
parked in the action_required state (Run Tests, Lint, Type Checks, CodeQL, Vuln Scan,
plus the PR title/size jobs) — that is how this repo gates pull requests opened from a fork, and it
is why the only check visible here is require-issue. Nothing is failing; the required checks have
simply not been permitted to start. Could someone approve the pending runs?

In the meantime, the equivalent evidence I can produce locally: the exact pytest and ruff commands
with their output are recorded in the PR body above, run in this repo's locked venv. One caveat so
nothing is oversold: in my venv the knowledge tests also show test_docling_source and
test_multiple_docling_sources failing, and those two reproduce identically on a clean main
checkout — they need the optional docling extra, which is not installed here, so they are
unrelated to this diff.

2. The llm-generated label. .github/CONTRIBUTING.md:5-7 requires it on any PR authored by an
AI agent, and this PR is one — the body already says so. As the author of a fork PR I have no
permission to add labels to this repository (the API returns 403 for me), so this is the one
requirement of that policy I cannot satisfy myself.

Three sibling PRs from the same account were prepared the same way and need both items: #7610, #7612,
#7615, #7617. Each links its own open issue (#7609, #7611, #7614, #7616), each carries RED -> GREEN
measurements in its body, and each touches only one function plus its test file.

One deliberate non-request: I have not pushed a merge of main into this branch. The change is small
and self-contained, and since merges here are squashes a refreshed branch would only replace the
pending runs with a new set that still needs approving.