Sub-Agents Reference

Create specialized AI agents with isolated contexts for specific tasks.

When to Use "How do I create a sub-agent?" "Configure agent tools" "What built-in agents exist?" "Agent model selection" "Agent chaining patterns" Quick Start Interactive (Recommended) /agents

Opens menu to create, edit, and manage agents.

Manual Creation mkdir -p .claude/agents cat > .claude/agents/reviewer.md << 'EOF'

name: reviewer description: Code review specialist. Use proactively after code changes. tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash model: sonnet

You are a senior code reviewer focusing on quality and security.

Review Checklist

• Code clarity and naming
• Error handling
• Security vulnerabilities
• Test coverage EOF

CLI-Based claude --agents '{ "reviewer": { "description": "Code reviewer", "prompt": "Review for quality and security", "tools": ["Read", "Bash"], "model": "sonnet" } }'

Agent File Format

name: agent-name description: When/why to use this agent tools: Read, Edit, Bash # Optional, inherits all if omitted model: sonnet # sonnet, haiku, claude-opus-4-5-20251101, inherit

System prompt content here...

Configuration Fields Field Required Options name Yes lowercase, hyphens description Yes When to use tools No Tool list (inherits all if omitted) model No sonnet, haiku, claude-opus-4-5-20251101, inherit Built-In Agents Agent Model Tools Purpose General-purpose Sonnet All Complex multi-step tasks Plan Sonnet Read-only Plan mode research Explore Haiku Read-only Fast codebase search Model Selection Model Speed Best For Haiku Fastest Search, quick lookups Sonnet Fast Most tasks (default) Opus Slower Complex reasoning Tool Combinations

Code Reviewer (read-only)

tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash

Debugger

tools: Read, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob

Implementer

tools: Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob

Example Agents Code Reviewer

name: code-reviewer description: Reviews code for quality and security. Use after code changes. tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash model: sonnet

Review code for: - Security vulnerabilities - Code quality issues - Missing error handling - Test coverage gaps

Output findings by priority: Critical > Warning > Suggestion

Debugger

name: debugger description: Debug errors and test failures. tools: Read, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob model: inherit

Debugging process: 1. Capture error details 2. Identify failure location 3. Form hypotheses 4. Test and verify 5. Implement fix

File Locations Type Location Priority Project .claude/agents/ Highest User ~/.claude/agents/ Lower Advanced Patterns Resumable Agents [Agent returns agentId: "abc123"]

Later: resume with context

claude -r "abc123" "Continue analysis"

Agent Chaining Use code-analyzer to find issues, then use optimizer to fix them

Best Practices Single responsibility - One clear purpose per agent Restrict tools - Only grant what's needed Clear descriptions - Action-oriented, include "proactively" Version control - Check .claude/agents/ into git