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<title>rulesets/claude-rules/subagents.md, branch main</title>
<subtitle>Claude Code skills, rules, and language bundles
</subtitle>
<id>https://git.cjennings.net/rulesets/atom?h=main</id>
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<updated>2026-04-19T22:23:37+00:00</updated>
<entry>
<title>feat(rules): add subagents.md — when, how, and when not to delegate</title>
<updated>2026-04-19T22:23:37+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Craig Jennings</name>
<email>c@cjennings.net</email>
</author>
<published>2026-04-19T22:23:37+00:00</published>
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<id>urn:sha1:c96296a30e3f712561b5f05f3f1e9d95588f643e</id>
<content type='text'>
Cross-cutting rule covering subagent hygiene:

- Decision table: parallel-safe (read-only investigation, independent
  test failures, multi-domain research) vs sequential-with-review
  (plan execution, coupled edits) vs never-parallel (concurrent writes)
  vs don't-subagent-at-all (target known, work fits in ~10 tool calls).
- Prompt contract: scope / pasted context / explicit 'do NOT' list /
  required output format. Missing any field yields shallow work.
- Context-pollution rule: subagents absorb noise the main thread
  shouldn't carry. When one fails, dispatch a fix-agent with the
  failure report — do not retry in the orchestrator.
- Review-gate cadence: after each sequential task, or every ~3 in
  parallel batches.
- Anti-patterns including parallel implementation on overlapping
  files, broad 'fix all the tests' prompts, timeout-tuning to mask
  flakes, and letting the agent decide scope.

Added one-line cross-references to subagents.md from debug/,
review-code/, and finish-branch/ SKILL.md — the skills that most
rely on delegation.

Clean-room synthesis from NeoLabHQ/context-engineering-kit's
subagent-driven-development pattern (MIT).
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