diff --git a/tools/cascade b/tools/cascade
index 2f98a3b..cb14b07 100755
--- a/tools/cascade
+++ b/tools/cascade
@@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ MODEL="${OLLIE_CASCADE_MODEL:-qwen2.5-coder:14b}"
 
 die() { printf 'cascade: %s\n' "$*" >&2; exit 1; }
 
+[ -z "${OLLIE_SESSION_ID:-}" ] && die "OLLIE_SESSION_ID not set (cascade must run inside a session)"
+
 instruction="${1:-}"
 [ -z "$instruction" ] && die "instruction required"
 
@@ -45,4 +47,4 @@ TASK:
 ${instruction}"
 
 printf '%s\n' "$prompt" > "$B/prompt" || die "failed to submit prompt"
-printf 'spawned %s\n' "$B"
+printf 'session=%s\npath=%s\nbackend=%s\nmodel=%s\n' "$id" "$B" "$BACKEND" "$MODEL"