Sub-Agent Delegation

Sub-agents are isolated agent invocations spawned from a parent. They run in a fresh context, do focused work, and return a single result. Use them to parallelize, specialize, and protect context.

When to Use

• Parallel research (5 topics × 1 agent each, run concurrently)
• Context-heavy sub-tasks that would bloat the parent's window
• Specialist work (a "code reviewer" sub-agent, a "security auditor" sub-agent)
• Independent work items where errors shouldn't compound

When NOT to Use

• Trivial single-step tasks — sub-agent overhead isn't worth it
• Tasks that need to see the parent's full context — you'll have to pass it, defeating the isolation
• Highly interactive work — sub-agents don't ask clarifying questions back

The Model