Parallel Subagents

SKILL: Parallel Teammates (Agent Teams Coordination)

Purpose: Concurrent teammate execution for independent tasks, 50-70% speedup Target: Team Leads coordinating multiple independent SCs/tasks in Agent Teams

Quick Start

When to Use This Skill

• Multiple independent SCs (no shared files, no dependencies)
• Independent code changes (different files/directories)
• Parallel verification (testing, type-check, linting)
• Multi-angle review (code-reviewer, security-analyst in parallel)

Quick Reference

# Spawn teammates for independent SCs (from execute-plan Step 3)
Spawn teammate "sc1-impl" with prompt:
  "You are a $SC_AGENT. Execute SC-1: Create authentication service.
  Skills: tdd, ralph-loop, vibe-coding. Mark task done when complete."

Spawn teammate "sc2-impl" with prompt:
  "You are a $SC_AGENT. Execute SC-2: Create user service.
  Skills: tdd, ralph-loop, vibe-coding. Mark task done when complete."

Spawn teammate "sc3-impl" with prompt:
  "You are a $SC_AGENT. Execute SC-3: Create database migrations.
  Skills: tdd, ralph-loop, vibe-coding. Mark task done when complete."

Note: $SC_AGENT is selected per-SC (not per-plan) in execute-plan Step 3 based on each SC's file paths and keywords. Different SCs may use different specialized agents (e.g., SC-1 → frontend-engineer, SC-2 → backend-engineer).

⚠️ What "Parallel" Means (CRITICAL)

Parallel = Multiple teammates spawned simultaneously in Agent Team:

# ✅ TRUE PARALLEL (single response, multiple Spawn calls)
Spawn teammate "sc1-impl" with prompt: "Execute SC-1..."
Spawn teammate "sc2-impl" with prompt: "Execute SC-2..."
Spawn teammate "sc3-impl" with prompt: "Execute SC-3..."

Sequential = One teammate per response (loop dispatch):

# ❌ NOT PARALLEL (even if called "parallel")
for SC in $SC_LIST; do
    Spawn teammate "impl-$SC" with prompt: "Execute $SC..."
done

Team Lead delegate mode: Coordinate only (Shift+Tab), never implement directly

Core Concepts

Parallel Execution Patterns

Pattern 1: Independent SCs

Spawn teammate "explore-auth" with prompt:
  "You are an explorer. Search for auth patterns. Share findings via Message."

Spawn teammate "explore-db" with prompt:
  "You are an explorer. Search for database patterns. Share findings via Message."

Spawn teammate "explore-api" with prompt:
  "You are an explorer. Search for API patterns. Share findings via Message."

Pattern 2: Parallel Verification

Spawn teammate "test-reviewer" with prompt:
  "You are a tester. Run tests and verify coverage. Mark task done when complete."

Spawn teammate "quality-reviewer" with prompt:
  "You are a validator. Run type check and lint. Mark task done when complete."

Spawn teammate "deep-reviewer" with prompt:
  "You are a code-reviewer (Opus). Review for async bugs. Mark task done when complete."

Pattern 3: Multi-Angle Review

Spawn teammate "plan-review" with prompt:
  "You are a plan-reviewer. Review plan completeness. Message other reviewers with findings."

Spawn teammate "code-review" with prompt:
  "You are a code-reviewer. Review code quality. Message other reviewers with findings."

Spawn teammate "security-review" with prompt:
  "You are a security-analyst. Review security issues. Message other reviewers with findings."

Dependency Analysis

Before launching parallel teammates, check for conflicts:

1. File Overlap: Do SCs mention same files?
2. Dependency Keywords: "after", "depends", "requires", "follows"
3. ParallelGroup Annotation: Group independent SCs in plan

Coordination

Result Integration:

• Wait for all parallel teammates to complete (TaskCompleted hook auto-verifies)
• Check for file conflicts (rare if analysis correct)
• Aggregate results from completed teammates

Performance: 50-70% faster for independent tasks

Anti-Patterns

Don't parallelize:

• Tasks with shared file modifications (causes merge conflicts)
• Tasks with dependencies (later task will fail)
• Sequential workflows (e.g., build then test)

Test Execution Concurrency

Critical: Multiple tester teammates in parallel can cause worker explosion (6 teammates × 16 workers = 96 processes, Load 85+)

Pattern: Test type-aware concurrency

• E2E/Integration: Sequential execution (E2E sequential, one at a time)
• Unit/Lint/Type: Parallel allowed with --maxWorkers=50% (unit parallel)

Detection (from execute-plan Step 3):

• Path: **/e2e/**, **/integration/**, **/*.e2e.*
• Keywords: "e2e", "integration", "playwright", "cypress"
• Fail-safe: Unknown → unit (parallel with worker limit)

Implementation: @.claude/agents/tester.md applies --maxWorkers=50% (Jest) or --workers=1 (Playwright E2E)

Full examples: See @.claude/skills/parallel-subagents/REFERENCE.md#test-execution-concurrency

Single Teammate Delegation Pattern

When to Use

• Single SC execution (no parallelism needed)
• Sequential workflow steps
• Context protection for Team Lead

Why Delegate Single Tasks

Team Lead context is limited (~200K tokens). By delegating:

• Teammate runs in isolated context (~80K tokens internally)
• Returns concise summary (~1K tokens via Task List)
• Team Lead maintains clean context for coordination

Pattern

Spawn teammate "[role-name]" with prompt:
  """
  You are a [agent-type] (see @.claude/agents/[agent-type].md).
  [Clear task description with all context needed]
  Skills to use: [skill1, skill2]
  When complete, mark task as done. If blocked, message the team lead.
  """

Examples

Single Coder Delegation:

Spawn teammate "sc1-impl" with prompt:
  """
  You are a coder (see @.claude/agents/coder.md).
  Execute SC-1: Create authentication service from $PLAN_PATH.
  Skills to use: tdd, ralph-loop, vibe-coding.
  When complete, mark task as done. If blocked, message the team lead.
  """

Single Plan-Reviewer Delegation:

Spawn teammate "plan-review" with prompt:
  """
  You are a plan-reviewer (see @.claude/agents/plan-reviewer.md).
  Review plan at $PLAN_FILE for gaps and issues.
  Review criteria: requirements coverage, success criteria clarity.
  When complete, mark task as done. If blocked, message the team lead.
  """

Single Documenter Delegation:

Spawn teammate "doc-sync" with prompt:
  """
  You are a documenter (see @.claude/agents/documenter.md).
  Invoke the three-tier-docs skill to sync documentation.
  Project root: $PROJECT_ROOT.
  When complete, mark task as done. If blocked, message the team lead.
  """

Verification

# Launch 3 independent teammates
Spawn teammate "find-ts" with prompt: "You are an explorer. Find TypeScript files."
Spawn teammate "find-tests" with prompt: "You are an explorer. Find test files."
Spawn teammate "find-config" with prompt: "You are an explorer. Find config files."

# Team Lead operates in delegate mode (Shift+Tab)
# TaskCompleted hook auto-verifies quality gates
# Shared Task List shows completion status

Further Reading

Internal: @.claude/skills/parallel-subagents/REFERENCE.md - Detailed dependency analysis, command-specific patterns, coordination examples | @.claude/skills/agent-teams/SKILL.md - Agent Teams core concepts | @.claude/skills/using-git-worktrees/SKILL.md - Parallel development in isolated worktrees

External: None

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