sdk: design agent runtime helper layer above dispatch events

[eggplantiny]

Context

Derived from the 2026-04-25 and 2026-04-28 Claude Code usage review.

Claude Code agent drivers had to manage inFlight guards, self-dispatch event handling, and shadow/driver coordination around dispatch / subscribe / on surfaces.

Current assessment

SPEC status: not currently provided as core runtime semantics.

The current runtime event model exposes causally complete events with correlation data such as intentId. It does not automatically suppress self-dispatch events, and it should not hide causality at the runtime layer.

Desired outcome

Design an agent-oriented helper layer above SDK dispatch events, potentially as an ecosystem package such as @manifesto-ai/agent.

This helper may provide source tags, ignore lists, driver utilities, in-flight handling, and safer patterns for AI-agent loops while preserving the underlying runtime telemetry.

Acceptance criteria

• Helper design is layered above SDK/Core semantics and does not change runtime causality.
• Self-dispatch suppression, if provided, is opt-in helper behavior rather than a default runtime behavior.
• Driver examples use event payloads and fresh runtime snapshots instead of React-mediated stale state.
• Non-goal is explicit: do not merge state events and telemetry events for agent convenience.