subagent_spawning
Whether agents can spawn, delegate to, or resume other agents. Enables multi-agent coordination patterns.
Type: bool Content type: agents
Provider Support
Section titled “Provider Support”| Provider | Supported | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| claude-code | ✓ | main-thread agents spawn subagents via Agent tool; subagents cannot spawn further subagents; Agent(type) in tools allowlist restricts which subagent types are allowed; Agent without parentheses allows spawning any subagent; omitting Agent from tools list blocks all spawning |
| codex | ✓ | multi-agent V2 feature flag; max_threads and max_concurrent_threads_per_session control concurrent agent count, max_depth controls nesting depth; spawn-agent tool initiates delegation |
| copilot-cli | ✓ | agents run as subagents with isolated context windows; Git-SHA-based versioning ensures consistency across PR interactions |
| cursor | ✓ | Since Cursor 2.5, subagents can launch child subagents to create a tree of coordinated work. Nested launches require Task tool access and can be restricted by hooks or tool policies. |
| factory-droid | ✓ | droids exposed as subagent_type targets for Task tool delegation; /droids menu (I key) imports Claude Code .claude/agents/*.md to droid format with field mapping and model family translation |
| opencode | ✓ | Agents with mode: subagent (or mode: all) can be invoked from other agents via the Task tool; delegation is driven by the callee's description field. Task permissions (permission.task) on the orchestrating agent control which subagents it is allowed to invoke. |
| amp | ✗ | not documented |
| cline | ✗ | not documented |
| crush | ✗ | not documented |
| gemini-cli | ✗ | Recursion is explicitly prevented — subagents cannot invoke other subagents even when granted the '*' tool wildcard. The documentation states this is to avoid infinite loops and excessive token usage. |
| kiro | ✗ | no subagent spawning mechanism documented for Kiro custom agents |
| pi | ✗ | not documented |
| roo-code | ✗ | Custom modes are switched-to by the user rather than spawned as subagents; Roo Code's orchestrator mode delegates to other modes at runtime but mode files themselves do not spawn peers |
| windsurf | ✗ | not documented |
| zed | ✗ | not documented |