Subagent
A separate agent run with its own fresh context, started by a main agent for one subtask.
The main agent hands a focused task to a subagent, which works in its own context window and returns only the result. It keeps the main context clean and lets independent work run in parallel. The cost is tokens: every subagent rereads what it needs.
Related terms
- AI agent: A model that decides its next step itself, calls tools and repeats until the task is done.
- Context window: The maximum number of tokens the model can read and write in one request.
- Context rot: Model quality drops as the context fills with old, irrelevant or conflicting material.
