subagent-usagelisted

# Subagent Usage ## What Subagents Are Subagents are separate Claude instances spawned from your main session. They have their own context window, execute independently, and return results to the main session. Your main context stays clean. ## When Subagents Help Tasks that benefit from subagents: - **Testing**: writing tests for code you just implemented (test-writer agent) - **Code review**: reviewing your own changes for quality (code-simplifier agent) - **Research**: reading many files to answer a specific question - **Parallel work**: running verification while you continue designing - **Build validation**: checking that everything compiles and passes (build-validator) - **File generation**: creating boilerplate, configs, or template files The common thread: these tasks require context (reading files, understanding code) but that context doesn't need to persist in your main session. ## When NOT to Use Subagents - Tasks requiring back-and-forth with the user (subagents can't interact with users) - Tasks where the result needs deep integration with your current reasoning - Very small tasks (the overhead of spawning isn't worth it) - Tasks that depend on conversation history the subagent doesn't have ## Context Hygiene Your main session has limited context. Every file you read, every long output you generate, consumes context. Subagents let you offload this: Instead of: 1. Read 10 test files to understand patterns (consumes context) 2. Write new tests (uses that