Iterative Retrieval for Subagents

Purpose: Keep subagent context budgets small while still answering the parent agent's real question. Scope: Subagent delegation, RAG-style scoped reads, multi-pass code search, evidence extraction.

When to Use This Skill

• Parent agent needs a subagent to read large files, long docs, or many search hits and return a short answer.
• The naive approach ("here is the whole repo, summarize") will blow the subagent context.
• The question is open enough that one search query will miss relevant evidence.
• Answer must cite specific files, lines, or sections, not just produce a paraphrase.

When NOT to Use

• Single-file edits where you can read the file directly.
• Questions answerable from titles or filenames alone.
• Tasks where the parent agent already has the relevant content in context.