Subagent
A specialized AI agent that handles one focused task within a larger orchestrated agent system.
A subagent is a focused worker within a multi-agent pipeline. While the orchestrator agent plans and delegates, subagents execute one for research, one for writing, one for fact-checking. Each has its own system prompt, tool access, and (often) its own model.
Subagents matter because monolithic agents struggle with long, mixed tasks. Splitting work into specialists lets each one have a tighter prompt, smaller context window, and more reliable behavior. Claude Code popularized the pattern in development workflows.
A practical subagent library for engineering teams might include: 'frontend-developer', 'backend-architect', 'devops-automator', 'test-runner', 'security-reviewer'. Each one is a markdown file with a system prompt and tool permissions.