Parallel Explore

Use this skill when you need to understand a large or unfamiliar codebase quickly — onboarding onto a new project, investigating how a feature works across layers, or mapping the architecture.

How It Works

Cursor's explore subagent is a fast, read-only agent optimized for searching and reading code. You can launch multiple explore agents in a single message and they run concurrently, each investigating a different area.

Steps

1. Identify the areas to explore — break the codebase into logical zones. For a typical full-stack app:

   • Frontend: components, pages, routing, state management
   • Backend: API routes, database models, middleware, auth
   • Infrastructure: CI/CD, Docker, deployment config
   • Shared: types, utilities, constants

2. Launch parallel explore agents — use the Task tool with subagent_type: "explore" for each area. Launch them all in one message: