New session spawned from keyboard shortcut inherits current mode instead of respecting default_agent #29594

This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:

• [FEATURE]:Option to always start sessions in the configured default agent mode #27370: Same root issue — default_agent config not being respected when sessions are opened; that issue covers resumed sessions opening in the wrong mode, which overlaps closely with this report about new sessions spawned from a keyboard shortcut inheriting the current mode instead of using default_agent.

For keybind-related issues, please also check our pinned keybinds documentation: #4997

Thanks for the triage. I've reviewed both #27370 and the keybinds docs at #4997, but I don't think either applies here:

1. Not a duplicate of [FEATURE]:Option to always start sessions in the configured default agent mode #27370. That issue is about resumed sessions ignoring default_agent (session state persistence overriding config). My issue is about newly created sessions inheriting the current session's mode instead of reading default_agent from config. The trigger and likely code path are different — [FEATURE]:Option to always start sessions in the configured default agent mode #27370 is a persistence/restore problem, this is a session creation problem.

2. Keybinds can't fix this. I've reviewed the keybinds documentation and the full list of configurable actions in tui.json. There's no action or modifier that controls which agent mode session_new uses — it's not a keybind configuration issue.

The fix needs to be in the session_new handler itself: when creating a new session, it should read default_agent from config rather than inheriting the current session's active agent.

Happy to provide any additional info needed.

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