From [pd~] help:

It looks like I just need to find the startup flags that let me pass args to the top-level abstraction, but (having already proven myself to be functionally blind on this forum) I can't find them. Here is someone wondering the same thing in 2011 with no resolution https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/4600/pure-data-start-up-arguments-as-abstraction-arguments. Do these flags exist?

@jameslo Maybe you "just" add the arguments after the patch name?...... pd~ start pd~-mypatch.pd arg1 arg2 arg3.. etc.?
.... as you would when creating an object or putting an object dynamically.

The 2 command line flags for the process that might help are...
https://puredata.info/docs/faq/commandline
-send "msg..." -- send a message at startup, after patches are loaded
.... where does it go?...... maybe -send receivename message ...?

and
-extraflags <s> -- string argument to send schedlib
.... hmmm!
Which is maybe processed in here somewhere........ http://puredata.info/docs/developer/PdStartupOrder
David.

Thanks for the ideas.
@whale-av said:

Maybe you "just" add the arguments after the patch name?

Yeah, that seems like something undocumented that Pd would support, but alas, it doesn't. [pd~ start subprocess.pd 42( just causes the subprocess console to print ""42.000000: can't open"

-send "msg..." -- send a message at startup, after patches are loaded
.... where does it go?...... maybe -send receivename message ...?

-msg "cheer go bears" sends [go bears( to [r cheer], which is probably what you meant. I'd use that but what I'm trying to do is set the clone start index [clone -s $1 dollyTheSheep] and there's no clone message that does that (as far as this blind man can see).

-extraflags <s> -- string argument to send schedlib

I don't know where to begin with this one.

Oooh, wait! If it doesn't exist, then maybe -send "msg" together with dynamic patching would work?

@jameslo I don't really know [clone] very well so I could be missing what you are going after, but can't you just use [clone]'s [set( method combined with -send msg instead of dynamic patching since all you are trying to do is set the index?

@oid I never use [set <n>(, but my understanding is that it modifies the state of clone's built-in round-robin allocator (which I'm not using). I'm trying to change how clone assigns the argument $1 inside each abstraction instance that clone has loaded so that I don't have to worry about which subprocess a particular clone is running in. Subprocess 0 will have clones 0-99, subprocess 1 will have clones 100 - 199.... But now (of course) that you've forced me to think about it some more, yes I could just add an offset to the value of $1 in each cloned abstraction, and set that offset with a message from the main process. That's probably clearer than dynamic patching.

It works (only?) with dynamic patching:

The subpatch connection is lost due to the [inlet] re-creation. It's possible to use mouse events to cut the [clone] instead of use the [clear( message.

@FFW Thanks, your approach is the way I was originally thinking about it, but since I'm new to dynamic patching and my clone has a lot of connections, I started down a slightly different path. Since I know I can set a $n argument from an enclosing patch, I was thinking I could make a wrapper for my clone patch and instantiate the wrapper instance dynamically with the args set to the values I want. But even this is moot because in my prev post I discovered that there are simpler ways to achieve my goal than trying to parameterize the clone start index flag.

When you need to make connections to a subpatch you are doing dynamic patching in it is generally easier to just use [send]/[receive] and the like in place of [inlet]/[outlet].