Can I restrict what tools a subagent can use?

Yes, one of the primary benefits of subagents is minimal tool access. You can grant only necessary permissions, such as allowing a subagent to read files but preventing it from editing them.

What is a Claude Code subagent?

A subagent is an isolated Claude context with its own custom system prompt and restricted toolset, designed to handle specific, self-contained tasks independently of the main conversation.

How does Claude decide when to trigger a subagent?

Claude relies entirely on the subagent's name and description to decide whether to delegate a task. The subagent's full instructions are only loaded after the delegation occurs.

When should I use a subagent instead of a Skill?

Use a subagent for self-contained tasks that produce verbose output or require restricted tool access. Use a Skill for reusable prompts that need to share the main conversation's full history.

Subagent Engineering

Name: Subagent Engineering
Author: xobotyi

byxobotyi

0•

Productivity & Workflow

Manages the full lifecycle of Claude Code subagents through specialized creation, evaluation, iteration, and troubleshooting workflows.

Subagent Engineering is a specialized framework designed to help developers build and manage isolated AI contexts within Claude Code. It provides structured guidance on designing system prompts, configuring restricted toolsets, and defining clear delegation triggers to ensure subagents handle self-contained tasks efficiently. By following the skill's core principles of single responsibility and minimal tool access, users can parallelize complex research, enforce security boundaries, and maintain a clean main conversation history while delegating verbose or repetitive work to targeted sub-agents.

Key Features

01Integration with prompt-engineering for high-quality system instructions

020 GitHub stars

03Granular tool permission management for isolated contexts

04Strategic delegation logic based on name and description triggers

05Pre-configured patterns for common subagent types and handoffs

06Full lifecycle management from creation to troubleshooting

Use Cases

01Creating specialized codebase explorers that return concise summaries instead of raw data dumps

02Designing a dedicated security auditor subagent that runs independently of the main dev loop

03Optimizing subagent descriptions to fix issues where Claude fails to delegate tasks correctly

What are Skills?·How to Install

Install with 🐟 Skill.Fish

npx skillfish add xobotyi/cc-foundry subagent-engineering

For use in Claude.ai and ChatGPT

Download Skill