# Delegate > Decompose substantive work into phases, dispatch each phase to a sub-agent, and adjudicate what comes back. Use whenever a request asks for implementation, investigation, a fix, a review, or any change to files — including small ones — and whenever you are about to read source or run a diagnostic yourself instead of handing it off. Also use when a report from a sub-agent needs judging, when a phase needs re-dispatching, or when a user names one instance of a pattern. Does not apply when your own prompt begins "Your ROLE_TYPE is sub-agent." — then follow references/sub-agent-contract.md instead. - Skill: `jamie-bitflight/delegate` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 5 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add jamie-bitflight/delegate` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/jamie-bitflight/delegate/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: Jamie-BitFlight (https://skillmd.com/u/jamie-bitflight) - Updated: 2026-09-10 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/jamie-bitflight/delegate --- # Delegate The orchestrator's context is the one window that lasts the whole session. Every file it reads and every command output it holds is judgment budget spent. Sub-agents get a fresh window per task, so the orchestrator routes, defines done, and judges; the agents read, run, and write. ## Two roles Every dispatch prompt opens with `Your ROLE_TYPE is sub-agent.` That line is an anti-recursion marker: a sub-agent that inherits this skill must not fan out further. If your prompt opened that way, stop here and follow [references/sub-agent-contract.md](./references/sub-agent-contract.md). Otherwise you are the delegator and the rest of this file applies. ## When this applies Any request that changes files, investigates a cause, gathers facts, fixes a bug, or reviews work — regardless of size — and any moment you are about to read source or run a diagnostic yourself instead of handing it off. "It's only two lines" is delegated. The one exception: a check scoped to a single file you edited yourself this turn. Also applies once work is underway: judging a sub-agent's report (see Adjudicate), re-dispatching a phase, or generalizing a user-named pattern instance (see Pattern expansion). Answer inline when the answer is already in your context and no file changes. ## Decompose Split the request into phases. Keep only the phases that produce work; never pad. | Phase | Produces | | --- | --- | | read | The material the work depends on, located and read | | gather | External facts: docs, prior art, current system state | | process | The analysis and the chosen approach | | verify | The approach checked against the real code and environment | | write | The change | | validate | Lint, type-check, build results | | test | Test runs, plus new tests covering the change | | report | What changed, with evidence | | review | Independent critique of the result | Some shapes recur and have their own handling: - **Bug fix** → [references/fix-cycle.md](./references/fix-cycle.md): reproduce before changing. - **Same edit across many targets** → one `process` dispatch decides the change; N generic dispatches apply it; one `review` dispatch checks. See [parallel-work](../parallel-work/SKILL.md). ## Dispatch - One phase per dispatch. A phase may fan out across N targets (N dispatches, same phase); it never blends with another phase. - Send independent dispatches together in one turn so they run concurrently. Serialize only where one consumes another's result, or two would write the same file without isolation. - Results from `read`/`gather`/`process` go to a file, not into your context. Pass the path to the next phase; do not forward the content. ### Pick the agent Classify by what the task asks of the agent, not by its name: - **Specialist** — any agent whose description matches the phase's domain. Gets observations, success criteria, and context. Never gets implementation steps. - **Generic** — `general-purpose` (or the harness equivalent) and `Explore`. Gets a prescribed implementation: exact edit, exact files, exact verification. `Explore` only for exact-match search. - **Reviewer** — for the `review` phase, an agent different from the one that wrote, preferring a reviewer- or auditor-typed agent for the domain. When no specialist fits, dispatch generic with a prescribed task. Both prompts open with the same two lines — copy them verbatim onto the first line of whichever template follows: `Your ROLE_TYPE is sub-agent. Follow the sub-agent contract at .` ### Prompt — specialist mode ```text PHASE: TASK: OBSERVATIONS: - DEFINITION OF SUCCESS: - - - DELIVERY: - Write anything longer than a line to .tmp/scratch/reports/-.md and return the path. CONTEXT: - Location: - Scope: - Constraints: - Commands: ECOSYSTEM CONTEXT: (omit the section if empty) - YOUR TASK: ``` Phase rows for `YOUR TASK`: | Phase | Row | | --- | --- | | read | Locate and read the material this work depends on. Write exact paths and quoted content to the delivery file; do not summarize away detail a later phase needs. Edit nothing. | | gather | Collect the external facts named in CONTEXT. Record each with its source in the delivery file. Edit nothing. | | process | Analyze the material at the paths in OBSERVATIONS. Choose an approach; record it and why alternatives were ruled out. Edit nothing. | | verify | Check the chosen approach against the real code and environment in CONTEXT. Record where it holds and where it fails. Implement nothing. | | write | Make the change in DEFINITION OF SUCCESS. Touch only files within CONTEXT Scope. | | validate | Run the commands in CONTEXT Commands, or discover this project's lint/type/build gates and state which you ran. Report exact output, pass and fail. A silenced failure is a failure. | | test | Run the test invocation in CONTEXT Commands, or discover it and state which you ran. Add tests covering the change. Report exact output. | | report | State what changed and the evidence for it: files, commands, outputs. Make no claim the evidence does not support. | | review | Critique the result at the path in OBSERVATIONS against DEFINITION OF SUCCESS. Report gaps, contradictions, unsupported claims. Fix nothing. | Rules for filling it in: - A section you cannot fill from what is already in your context is omitted, not invented. Empty OBSERVATIONS or ECOSYSTEM CONTEXT is a valid state; a guess is not. - OBSERVATIONS is pass-through: only what is already in your context. Reading, grepping, or running commands to fill it is pre-gathering; the agent does that with a fresh window. - State observations as facts ("exit code 1", "the error text is: …"). Where you hold a hypothesis, label it: `Hypothesis to verify: …`. - Constraints are outcomes and boundaries, never steps. Naming the project's own gate in Commands is a constraint, not a step. - Say nothing the agent inherits: repo conventions, toolchain, "explore freely", "use available skills". Those live in the project's agent instructions. Name a skill only when the agent must load it and would not on its own. - Paths: written as the agent will resolve them from its own working directory; relative inside the repo, and the symlink form (not the resolved target) for anything reached through a symlink. ### Prompt — generic mode ```text PHASE: TASK: FILES: - DEFINITION OF SUCCESS: - DELIVERY: - Include the verification output in your report. ``` ## Adjudicate Reports are claims. For each one: - Check that the evidence supports the conclusion. "Tests pass" without the command output is not evidence; re-dispatch for the output. - Judge the returned work; do not re-derive it. Re-reading what the agent read spends the context that delegating saved. - Two reports conflict → find the falsifiable claim and dispatch a check for it. Confidence is not a tiebreaker. - `PARTIAL` → re-dispatch the remainder, naming exactly what is left. - `BLOCKED` on a missing input → supply it and re-dispatch. `BLOCKED` after attempts → change the approach or escalate to the user; do not resend the same prompt. Re-dispatch the same phase at most twice on the same gap. After that, stop and report `BLOCKED` to the user with the gap named. Every request that changed code gets an independent review, from a reviewer other than the writer. ## Pattern expansion A user pointing at one instance of a smell, bug, or missing check is naming a pattern. Unless they said "only this one": dispatch an audit of the whole file or module for the pattern, report the instances found, and confirm with the user before fixing beyond the named file. ## Pointers - [references/sub-agent-contract.md](./references/sub-agent-contract.md) — what dispatched agents follow. - [references/fix-cycle.md](./references/fix-cycle.md) — the reproduce-first cycle for bug-fix dispatches. - [parallel-work](../parallel-work/SKILL.md) — fan-out, fan-in, maker/checker, tournaments, loops with caps; also points to Claude Code harness mechanics. - If `orchestrator-discipline` is installed: what the orchestrator may read and run; enforced by hooks. - If `process-siren` is installed: writing decision points as evaluable Mermaid diamonds.