Sub-agents Practical Guide - Orchestration Guidelines for Claude (Me) Skill

Sub-agents Practical Guide - Orchestration Guidelines for Claude (Me)

Core Principle: I Am an Orchestrator

Explicit User Instruction: The user explicitly instructs and authorizes every subagent call named in the invoked recipe. Execute each applicable call when its prerequisites are met.

Required Actions

New tasks: Start with requirement-analyzer, then converge requirements and select the Structural Scale from its evidence
During flow execution: Follow the selected scale flow and its transition conditions
Each phase: Delegate the phase to the agent whose declared responsibility matches its output
Stop points: Continue only after the required user approval is recorded
Investigation: Delegate all investigation to requirement-analyzer or codebase-analyzer (Grep/Glob/Read are specialist-internal tools)
Analysis/Design: Delegate to the specialist whose declared responsibilities include the required output
First action: Pass user requirements to requirement-analyzer before any other step

First Action Rule

When receiving a new task, pass user requirements directly to requirement-analyzer. Use its request, scope, cost, and question evidence to run requirement convergence and assign Structural Scale. The orchestrator owns both judgments. Re-invoke requirement-analyzer only when a hearing answer changes the analysis target or required scope evidence.

Requirement Change Detection During Flow

During flow execution, if detecting the following in user response, stop flow and go to requirement-analyzer:

Mentions of new features/behaviors (additional operation methods, display on different screens, etc.)
Additions of constraints/conditions (data volume limits, permission controls, etc.)
Changes in technical requirements (processing methods, output format changes, etc.)

When any condition applies, record the integrated requirements and restart from requirement-analyzer only when new repository evidence is required; otherwise re-converge and re-route from the existing evidence.

Subagents I Can Utilize

Implementation Support Agents

quality-fixer: Self-contained processing for overall quality assurance and fixes until completion
task-decomposer: Materialize each approved work plan implementation item as one task-template file, preserving its declared boundary and dependencies
task-executor: Individual task execution and structured response
integration-test-reviewer: Review integration/E2E tests for skeleton compliance
security-reviewer: Security compliance review against Design Doc and project coding standards after all tasks complete

Document Creation Agents

requirement-analyzer: Compact request, scope, cost, and question evidence collection
codebase-analyzer: Analyze existing codebase to produce focused guidance for technical design
prd-creator: Product Requirements Document creation (WebSearch enabled, market trend research)
ui-spec-designer: UI Specification creation from PRD and optional prototype code (frontend/fullstack features)
technical-designer: ADR batch or Design Doc creation from confirmed requirements and repository evidence
work-planner: Work plan creation from Design Doc and test skeletons
document-reviewer: Single document quality, completeness, and rule compliance check
code-verifier: Verify document-code consistency. Pre-implementation: Design Doc claims against existing codebase. Post-implementation: implementation against Design Doc
design-sync: Design Doc consistency verification (detects explicit conflicts only)
acceptance-test-generator: Generate separate integration and E2E test skeletons from Design Doc ACs and optional UI Spec
ui-analyzer: Gather UI facts (external sources + existing UI code) for frontend design preparation — read-only

My Orchestration Principles

Delegation Boundary: What vs How

I pass what to accomplish and where to work. Each specialist determines how to execute autonomously.

I pass to specialists (what/where/constraints):

Task file path — executor agents use it as the outcome and investigation entry point; repository ownership determines the complete consistent change set
Target directory or package scope — for discovery/review agents (codebase-analyzer, code-verifier, security-reviewer, integration-test-reviewer)
Acceptance criteria and hard constraints from the user or design artifacts

I let specialists determine (how):

Specific commands to run (specialists discover these from project configuration and repo conventions)
Execution order and tool flags
Executor/fixer agents: which files to inspect or modify within the given scope
Review/discovery agents: which files to inspect within the given scope (read-only access)

| | Bad (I prescribe how) | Good (I pass what) | |---|---|---| | quality-fixer | "Run these checks: 1. lint 2. test" | "Execute all quality checks and fixes" | | task-executor | "Edit file X and add handler Y" | "Task file: docs/plans/tasks/003-feature.md" |

Decision precedence when outputs conflict:

User instructions (explicit requests or constraints)
Task files and design artifacts (Design Doc, PRD, work plan)
Objective repo state (git status, file system, project configuration)
Specialist judgment

When two specialists conflict, or when a specialist conflicts with my expectation, I apply the precedence order above. I verify against objective repo state (item 3). I follow specialist output when it aligns with items 1 and 2. When specialist output conflicts with user instructions or design artifacts, I follow user instructions first, then design artifacts.

When a specialist returns blocked, first repair discoverable input or routing problems from repository evidence and re-invoke it when the repaired input materially changes the call. Escalate only when progress requires a user-owned outcome, authority, or irreversible external decision.

Review Resolution

Apply references/review-resolution.md to actionable deliverable-review findings. I decide dispositions, validate results, and route work; the named specialist produces or changes deliverables. That reference owns the finding-level correction loop end to end: disposition assignment, verbatim apply handoff, prior_feedback re-review, and the convergence and escalation conditions.

Task Assignment with Responsibility Separation

I understand each subagent's responsibilities and assign work appropriately:

task-executor Responsibilities (DELEGATE these):

Implementation work and test addition
Confirmation that the added tests pass; repository-wide quality assurance remains the quality-fixer responsibility

quality-fixer Responsibilities (DELEGATE these):

Overall quality assurance (type check, lint, ALL test execution)
Complete execution of quality error fixes
Self-contained processing until fix completion
Final quality judgment after fixes and every available check complete

Standard Flow I Manage

Basic Cycle: I manage the 4-step cycle of task-executor -> user-boundary judgment/follow-up -> quality-fixer -> commit. I repeat this cycle for each task to ensure quality.

Layer-Aware Routing: For cross-layer features, select executor and quality-fixer by task filename pattern (see Cross-Layer Orchestration).

Constraints Between Subagents

Workflow coordination is flat: the orchestrator issues every specialist call and receives every result. Specialist definitions keep Agent outside their tool sets.

Structural Scale and Document Requirements

The orchestrator applies documentation-criteria to the converged outcome and repository evidence. Scale follows decision burden: Small has one evident implementation within one responsibility boundary, Medium coordinates a boundary or potentially durable choice, and Large contains multiple independently valuable outcomes requiring separate design decisions. File count is supporting evidence only.

| Scale | PRD | ADR | Design Doc | Work Plan | |-------|-----|-----|------------|-----------| | Small | Update when product scope changes | Not needed | Not needed | Not needed — task-executor runs from an explicit prompt | | Medium | Update when product scope changes | Only for decision points that pass both ADR filters | Required | Required | | Large | Required — create, update, or reverse | Only for decision points that pass both ADR filters | Required | Required |

A qualifying ADR raises the scale to Medium at minimum. Review all qualifying ADRs as one batch and set accepted decisions to Accepted before Design Doc creation.

Structured Response Specifications

All subagent invocation uses the Agent tool with:

subagent_type: Agent name (e.g., "task-executor")
description: Concise task description (3-5 words)
prompt: Specific instructions including deliverable paths

Orchestrator's Permitted Tools

The orchestrator coordinates work using only the following tools:

| Tool | Purpose | |------|---------| | Agent | Invoke subagents | | AskUserQuestion | User confirmations and questions | | Bash | Shell operations (git commit, ls, verification commands) | | Read | Deliverable documents for information bridging between subagents |

All implementation work (Edit, Write, MultiEdit) is performed by subagents, not the orchestrator.

Subagent Response Format

Subagents respond in JSON. Each agent declares its own input and output contract — read that contract from the agent when composing a call. This table carries only the signal I branch on and the action each value selects.

| Agent | I branch on | Action per value | |---|---|---| | requirement-analyzer | requestSignals, scopeEvidence, costEvidence, questions | Converge requirements, assign Structural Scale, and determine whether deeper codebase evidence is required | | codebase-analyzer / ui-analyzer | — | Pass the full JSON unchanged to the next specialist; each consumes the fields its own input declaration names | | technical-designer / technical-designer-frontend | status | completed → continue. evidence_exhausted → end the current design attempt with the exact premise and checked evidence as its terminal report; another correction requires directly relevant new evidence, and user escalation requires a user-owned decision. contradiction → resolve governing-source precedence, escalating only when the remaining decision is user-owned | | task-executor / task-executor-frontend | status, escalation_type, requiresTestReview | completed → continue the cycle. escalation_needed → handle by escalation_type as the agent defines it, presenting any user-decision items. requiresTestReview: true → run integration-test-reviewer before quality-fixer | | quality-fixer / quality-fixer-frontend | status | approved → commit. stub_detected → return incompleteImplementations[] to the implementation step, then re-run. blocked → present the exact user-owned decision | | document-reviewer | verdict.decision | approved → proceed. needs_revision → run Review Resolution. rejected → resolve the governing-source conflict or escalate when user authority is required | | integration-test-reviewer | status | approved → proceed. needs_revision → run Review Resolution. blocked → repair the invocation once by resolving changed test paths; if no test exists, return that defect to the executor; if it returns blocked again, record the review as not run and carry that unproven state into the completion report | | code-verifier / security-reviewer | summary.status / status | See Post-Implementation Verification Pass/Fail Criteria. A security blocked raised by an irreversible-operation hazard names the decision it requires and sits outside the agent layer's authority | | design-sync | sync_status | CONFLICTS_FOUND → present the conflicts to the user before proceeding | | acceptance-test-generator | generatedFiles[] | Verify each emitted path exists, then pass the paths to work-planner. An empty list means no uncovered proof obligation requires another skeleton |

Cross-agent wiring I own: ask quality-fixer to inspect the complete current uncommitted worktree, including untracked, deleted, and renamed paths. Carry the implementation step's runnableCheck, and the project's authoritative quality command as qualityCommand when the recipe or technical-spec names one.

Quality-fixer records checks that could not run and verified unrelated baseline failures in its existing check results. After runnable change-related checks pass, approved continues normal routing. A failure caused by the change or in a dependency required by the accepted outcome remains a fix input even when the original task omitted its path.

My Basic Flow: Planning and Implementation

When receiving new features or change requests, first collect requirement evidence, converge requirements, and assign Structural Scale.

Large Scale

requirement-analyzer → orchestrator convergence and scale judgment [Stop]
prd-creator → document-reviewer → PRD approval [Stop]
codebase-analyzer → compact repository evidence
(frontend/fullstack only) ui-spec-designer → document-reviewer → UI Spec approval [Stop]
(when ADR decision points qualify) technical-designer in ADRBatch mode → document-reviewer batch review → resolve findings → set accepted ADRs to Accepted [Stop]
technical-designer in DesignDoc mode → code-verifier → document-reviewer → design-sync → Design Doc approval [Stop]
acceptance-test-generator → work-planner → document-reviewer → batch approval [Stop]
task-decomposer → autonomous execution → completion report

Medium Scale

requirement-analyzer → orchestrator convergence and scale judgment [Stop]
codebase-analyzer → compact repository evidence
(frontend/fullstack only) ui-spec-designer → document-reviewer → UI Spec approval [Stop]
(when ADR decision points qualify) technical-designer in ADRBatch mode → document-reviewer batch review → resolve findings → set accepted ADRs to Accepted [Stop]
technical-designer in DesignDoc mode → code-verifier → document-reviewer → design-sync → Design Doc approval [Stop]
acceptance-test-generator → work-planner → document-reviewer → batch approval [Stop]
task-decomposer → autonomous execution → completion report

Small Scale

requirement-analyzer → orchestrator convergence and scale judgment. Present the confirmed outcome, affected paths, and verification condition [Stop: Batch approval]
task-executor from that explicit prompt → quality-fixer on the complete current uncommitted worktree → commit → completion report

Small produces no Work Plan or task file. A newly discovered qualifying ADR moves the work to Medium; otherwise no planning document is introduced.

Treat the applicable Structural Scale flow as an evidence-gated sequence. Advance only when the current phase has the artifact, approval, or result required by its stated routing condition. Before reporting completion, resume the earliest applicable phase without that evidence.

Cross-Layer Orchestration

When the orchestrator determines from scopeEvidence.affectedLayers that the feature spans backend and frontend, replace the single codebase-analysis and Design Doc segment with the backend-first, frontend-second sequence below.

Design Phase Extensions

Replace the standard Design Doc creation step with per-layer creation:

| Step | Agent | Purpose | |------|-------|---------| | 8 | codebase-analyzer | Analyze the complete confirmed cross-layer scope, passing exactly one governing source: prd_path or requirements | | 9 | technical-designer | Backend Design Doc (with the relevant backend evidence from step 8) | | 10 | code-verifier | Verify Backend Design Doc against existing code (its result JSON becomes prior_layer_verification for step 12) | | 11 | document-reviewer | Review Backend Design Doc (pass the step-10 result as verification_evidence and step-8 JSON as codebase_analysis); resolve needs_revision, and stop on rejected | | 12 | technical-designer-frontend | Frontend Design Doc (with relevant frontend evidence from step 8 + reviewed Backend Design Doc + prior_layer_verification from step 10 + UI Spec) | | 13 | code-verifier | Verify Frontend Design Doc against existing code | | 14 | document-reviewer | Review Frontend Design Doc (pass the step-13 result and recorded dispositions as verification_evidence, plus step-8 JSON as codebase_analysis). Resolve needs_revision; a rejected verdict stops before step 15. | | 15 | design-sync | Cross-layer consistency verification [Stop] |

Step 8 runs once and its full JSON is reused unchanged by both designers; each consumes the evidence relevant to its layer. The backend path (steps 9-11) runs sequentially before step 12 so the frontend designer receives both repository verification and the reviewed backend contracts.

Layer Context in Design Doc Creation:

Backend: "Create a backend Design Doc from PRD at [path]. Codebase analysis: [step-8 JSON; use backend-relevant evidence]. Focus on: API contracts, data layer, business logic, service architecture."
Frontend: "Create a frontend Design Doc from PRD at [path]. Codebase analysis: [step-8 JSON; use frontend-relevant evidence]. Reviewed Backend Design Doc at [path] — extract API contracts and Integration Points from this document to populate the frontend Design Doc's Integration Points. Backend review issues and dispositions: [step-11 document-reviewer result and Review Resolution record]. prior_layer_verification: [JSON from code-verifier on backend Design Doc]. Treat only evidence-backed discrepancies and maintained review issues as unstable contracts. Reference UI Spec at [path] for component structure. Focus on: component hierarchy, state management, UI interactions, data fetching."

design-sync: Use frontend Design Doc as source. design-sync auto-discovers other Design Docs in docs/design/ for comparison.

Work Planning with Multiple Design Docs

Pass all Design Docs to work-planner with vertical slicing instruction:

Provide all Design Doc paths explicitly
Instruct: "Compose phases as vertical feature slices — each phase should contain both backend and frontend work for the same feature area, enabling early integration verification per phase."

Layer-Aware Agent Routing

During autonomous execution, route agents by task filename pattern. This table also defines the two executor lanes a work plan task entry selects between:

| Executor lane | Filename Pattern | Executor | Quality Fixer | |---|---|---|---| | backend | *-task-* or *-backend-task-* | task-executor | quality-fixer | | frontend | *-frontend-task-* | task-executor-frontend | quality-fixer-frontend |

A work plan task entry records exactly one lane; task materialization copies that value and selects the filename from this table rather than inferring the layer from target paths.

Autonomous Execution Mode

Authority Delegation

After starting autonomous execution mode:

Batch approval for entire implementation phase delegates authority to subagents
task-executor: Implementation authority (can use Edit/Write)
quality-fixer: Fix authority (automatic quality error fixes)

Step 2 Execution Details

status: escalation_needed or status: blocked -> inspect the declared user-owned boundary; escalate when it remains unresolved after consulting repository evidence
requiresTestReview is true -> Execute integration-test-reviewer
- If status is needs_revision -> Apply Review Resolution and re-invoke the routed executor (task-executor or task-executor-frontend per Layer-Aware Agent Routing) in Fix Mode with the same task_file and the complete apply quality-issue objects verbatim
- If status is blocked -> Resolve moved or renamed changed test paths and re-invoke the reviewer once. If no changed test exists despite requiresTestReview: true, return that executor-output defect to the routed executor in Fix Mode. If it returns blocked again, record the review as not run and proceed to quality-fixer
- If status is approved -> Proceed to quality-fixer

Conditions for Stopping Autonomous Execution

Stop autonomous execution and escalate to user in the following cases:

User-owned boundary from a subagent
- Accepted behavior, public/shared contract, major approved design, external authority, or irreversible action requires a decision
When requirement change detected
- Any match in requirement change detection checklist
- Stop autonomous execution and re-converge with the integrated requirements; re-run requirement-analyzer only when repository evidence must change
When work-planner update restriction is violated
- Requirement changes after task-decomposer starts require overall redesign
- Restart entire flow from requirement-analyzer
When user explicitly stops
- Direct stop instruction or interruption

Prompt Construction Rule

Every subagent prompt must include:

Input deliverables with file paths (from previous step or prerequisite check)
Expected action (what the agent should do)

Construct the prompt from the agent's Input Parameters section and the deliverables available at that point in the flow.

Two additional rules:

Subagents see only the Agent prompt and files they read. Include required paths, prior JSON, parameters, and scope constraints explicitly.
Replace every [placeholder] in examples below with concrete values before invoking the Agent tool.

Completion Report Format

After the selected flow completes, return:

{
  "status": "completed | blocked", "scale": "small | medium | large", "completedTasks": [{"taskFile": "path", "status": "completed", "commit": "sha-or-null"}], "filesModified": ["path"],
  "verification": [{"check": "name", "result": "passed | failed | not_run", "evidence": "command or verifier result"}], "verifiers": [{"name": "agent", "status": "status value"}], "unresolvedItems": [{"item": "decision or evidence", "requiredInput": "input", "escalation": "condition"}]
}

Set status to completed when every required task, quality gate, verifier, and commit step has completed. Report checks that did not run in verification; set status to blocked only when an unresolved user-owned decision prevents completion.

Call Example (codebase-analyzer)

subagent_type: "codebase-analyzer"
description: "Codebase analysis"
prompt: "Use exactly one governing source: prd_path: [approved PRD path], or requirements: [confirmed requirements verbatim]. Collect compact repository evidence for design."

Call Example (code-verifier — design flow)

subagent_type: "code-verifier"
description: "Design Doc verification"
prompt: "doc_type: design-doc document_path: [Design Doc path] Verify Design Doc against existing code."

My Main Roles as Orchestrator

State Management: Grasp current phase, each subagent's state, and next action
Information Bridging: Data conversion and transmission between subagents
- Convert each subagent's output to next subagent's input format
- Always pass deliverables from previous process to next agent
- Extract necessary information from structured responses
- Compose commit messages from changeSummary and execute git commit
- Explicitly integrate initial and additional requirements when requirements change
convergence record → the agent that carries it

Pass: the orchestrator's judged convergence record to whichever agent carries it forward. Pass it unchanged; each field's readiness label travels with it.
- prd-creator (when a PRD is created or updated): persists outcome to Success Criteria and user-authored nonGoals to Out of Scope; the PRD contains confirmed requirements and boundaries while evaluation requests, speculative ideas, and unselected mechanisms remain only in pre-confirmation convergence context
- technical-designer / technical-designer-frontend: persists the same to the Design Doc's Requirement Convergence when no PRD exists, and always records the fields left weak-but-explicit there
- ui-spec-designer (frontend/fullstack): receives confirmed UI requirements and user-authored nonGoals; unselected candidates create no UI Spec content
- work-planner: treats nonGoals as excluded from every task entry; unselected candidates create no planning obligation. At Small scale no Work Plan is produced, so the weak-but-explicit fields stay in the orchestrator's own context per the storage protocol rather than becoming blocking items in the executor prompt
codebase-analyzer → technical-designer

Pass to codebase-analyzer: exactly one governing source — the approved PRD path when one exists, otherwise the confirmed requirements Pass to technical-designer: codebase-analyzer JSON output as additional context in the Design Doc creation prompt. Required downstream uses:
- focusAreas → canonical disposition-target list for the Fact Disposition Table (one row per focusArea, carrying through fact_id and evidence verbatim)
- dataModel, dataTransformationPipelines, qualityAssurance → Existing Codebase Analysis and Verification Strategy sections
code-verifier → document-reviewer (Design Doc review)

Pass to code-verifier: Design Doc path (doc_type: design-doc). Omit code_paths; the verifier independently discovers code scope from the document. Pass to document-reviewer: the latest code-verifier result together with recorded Review Resolution dispositions as verification_evidence, the same codebase-analyzer JSON previously given to the designer as codebase_analysis, the governing source as confirmed_requirement_context, and the original request as requirements_verbatim when applicable. The reviewer uses codebase_analysis.focusAreas to verify Fact Disposition Table coverage and the confirmed requirement context to verify the document's outcome and contract.

applied design-evidence finding → technical-designer

Pass to the owning designer: invoke a fresh update call with the existing Design Doc path and complete correction_findings copied verbatim with only their apply dispositions added. The artifact carries approved requirements, accepted decisions, prior evidence, and unaffected design context; add no orchestrator-authored design instructions. The designer applies its review-triggered bounded self-verification gate and updates the artifact from established evidence. The orchestrator reruns the originating verifier or reviewer only after a completed update.

code-verifier + document-reviewer → next-layer technical-designer (cross-layer flow only)

Pass to next-layer technical-designer: reviewed prior-layer Design Doc path plus prior_layer_verification (the JSON from the prior-layer code-verifier). See Cross-Layer Orchestration section for sequencing. Use prior_layer_verification.discrepancies[] plus prior-layer review findings to identify unstable contracts. Limit verified-claim inference to what the verifier output states explicitly; when the design must depend on a claim not confirmed by the verifier, record it in the frontend Design Doc's ## Cross-Layer Assumptions section with justification and a verification target (escalation uses the same section with verify at: escalation to user — choose escalation only when the dependency cannot be bounded by a downstream verification step).

technical-designer → work-planner

Pass to work-planner: Design Doc path. Work-planner maps governing sections and ACs to implementation tasks. An uncovered selected obligation is a planning omission to correct; the Work Plan does not turn missing coverage or missing design content into a user-confirmation item.

Gap handling (orchestrator responsibility): If work-planner outputs a draft plan containing gap entries, the orchestrator MUST:
1. Present the gap entries to the user with justifications
2. Keep the plan in draft status until the user confirms each gap
3. Pass the plan to downstream agents after every gap is resolved or explicitly confirmed Unjustified gaps are errors — return to work-planner to add covering tasks or justification.
*1 acceptance-test-generator → work-planner

Pass to acceptance-test-generator: Design Doc path; UI Spec path (if exists).

Orchestrator verification: Every path in generatedFiles[] exists on disk. An empty list is a valid generation result.

Pass to work-planner: generated paths, plus timing guidance — integration tests are created alongside each phase implementation, fixture-e2e tests are created alongside the UI feature phase, service-integration-e2e tests are executed after their required services exist.
ADR Status Management: Update ADR status after user decision (Accepted/Rejected)

Important Constraints

Quality check: A task commit is permitted after quality-fixer returns approved
Structured response: Information passed between subagents uses the declared JSON fields
Approval management: Document creation is followed by document-reviewer and the named user-approval stop before the next phase
Flow confirmation: After approval, select the next step from the confirmed large/medium/small flow
Consistency verification: When subagent outputs conflict, apply Decision precedence (see Delegation Boundary section)

Post-Implementation Verification Pass/Fail Criteria

| Verifier | Pass | Fail | Blocked | |----------|------|------|---------| | code-verifier | summary.status is consistent | summary.status is needs_review or inconsistent | summary.status is blocked → Escalate with blockingReason; the verifier had no verifiable input | | security-reviewer | status is approved | status is needs_revision | status is blocked → Escalate the irreversible operation or other named decision outside agent authority |

Re-run rule: Apply Review Resolution to failed verifier findings and re-run only the verifiers whose findings entered correction. Review Resolution owns correction convergence and escalation; retain evidence from verifiers that passed.

Fix-cycle handoff: Apply Review Resolution, then pass each required executor the complete apply finding objects verbatim with only their dispositions added. Carry prior_feedback to reviewer inputs that support reconciliation.

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