# Subagent Development

Execute plan tasks with independent subagents inside the current session.

- Repository: https://github.com/obra/superpowers (310584 stars)
- Category: AI and agents
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-10-29
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill subagent-driven-development -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill subagent-driven-development -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill subagent-driven-development -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill subagent-driven-development -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add obra/superpowers`

## Description

Use when executing implementation plans with independent tasks in the current session

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Subagent-Driven Development

Execute plan by dispatching a fresh implementer subagent per task, a task review (spec compliance + code quality) after each, and a broad whole-branch review at the end.

**Why subagents:** You delegate tasks to specialized agents with isolated context. By precisely crafting their instructions and context, you ensure they stay focused and succeed at their task. They should never inherit your session's context or history, you construct exactly what they need. This also preserves your own context for coordination work.

**Core principle:** Fresh subagent per task + task review (spec + quality) + broad final review = high quality, fast iteration

**Narration:** between tool calls, narrate at most one short line, the
ledger and the tool results carry the record.

**Continuous execution:** Do not pause to check in with your human partner between tasks. Execute all tasks from the plan without stopping. The only reasons to stop are the four named below, or all tasks complete. "Should I continue?" prompts and progress summaries waste their time, they asked you to execute the plan, so execute it.

**Rulings, not stalls.** A running plan does not wait on a human. Conflicts,
ambiguities, plan defects, a cap you would have asked to exceed, decide
them. The spec is the binding authority, the plan is its argument, and your
judgment settles what neither answers. Record every decision in the ledger as
`Ruling: <what you decided>, <why>, <what it costs if wrong>`, and keep
going. A wrong ruling costs rework your human partner can see and undo; a
session parked on a question costs their whole day and buys nothing.

Four things stop you, and only these: an irreversible or destructive
operation; a security-sensitive action; a side effect outside this worktree
that norms say you ask about first (a merge, a push to a shared branch, a
publish); and a plan so broken that every path forward is a guess. For those,
stop and ask.

## When to Use

The rest: https://github.com/obra/superpowers/blob/HEAD/skills/subagent-driven-development/SKILL.md