Subagent Driven Development

Subagent-driven development

Gate (required)

Use only if:

• A written plan exists (planning-and-task-breakdown output) and user approved execution
• User or parent explicitly allows subagents for implementation
• Each task has clear files, acceptance, and verify steps

Otherwise use incremental-implementation in the main agent.

Workflow

For each plan task:
  1. Implementer subagent -> minimal change for task only
  2. Spec check -> matches acceptance criteria
  3. Quality check -> tests, style, scope (parent or review subagent)
  4. Parent integrates -> run verify-before-done for slice

Implementer brief (per task)

## Task
- **Title:**
- **Files (only these):**
- **Acceptance:**
- **Verify:**
- **Do not:** edit other files, refactor drive-by, commit unless instructed

Parent responsibilities

• Own git strategy (commit per slice only if user/repo expects it)
• Resolve conflicts between tasks
• Stop plan if two tasks need the same file
• Never claim full plan done until all tasks verified

Two-stage review

Critical spec failures block the next task.

Anti-patterns

• Subagents rewriting the plan mid-flight
• Parallel implementers without dispatching-parallel-agents guards
• Auto-commit/push from subagents without parent approval

Related

dispatching-parallel-agents, incremental-implementation, requesting-code-review, receiving-code-review, verify-before-done

Workflow inspired by obra/superpowers (MIT).