Scratchpad exploration tools fail on double-encoded JSON from MCP responses #111

Problem

Some MCP tool servers return responses with double-encoded JSON, e.g.:

{"result": "{\"pods\": [{\"name\": \"api-server-abc\", ...}]}"}

When this is written to the scratchpad as an artifact, the exploration tools (get_in, iterate_over, schema, etc.) can't parse the inner content because they encounter a string where they expect an object/array.

This is the root cause of some remaining max_depth failures in orchestration — workers spend turns trying to extract data from artifacts that the exploration tools can't navigate, eventually exhausting their turn budget.

Expected Behavior

Scratchpad should detect and unwrap double-encoded JSON at write time, or exploration tools should transparently handle string-valued JSON fields that contain parseable JSON.

Impact

• Workers waste turns on unparseable artifacts, leading to avoidable max_depth exhaustion
• Affects any MCP server that wraps responses in an extra layer of JSON encoding