Subagents

The model calls spawn_subagent autonomously when it needs to delegate work — no special commands needed.

Subagent types

Type	Default Model	Allowed Paths	Description
coding	claude-opus	~/.skimpyclaw, ~/Projects	Code tasks with broad file + bash access
research	claude-think	~/.skimpyclaw, ~/Obsidian	Research with vault access for notes
general	current model	~/.skimpyclaw	General tasks with config access

On first dispatch, the agent directory is auto-created with starter IDENTITY.md and TOOLS.md templates at ~/.skimpyclaw/agents/<type>/. Edit these to customize the subagent's behavior.

Concurrency and retry

• Max concurrent subagents: 5 (configurable via config.subagents.maxConcurrent)
• Retry on failure: 2 retries (configurable via config.subagents.maxRetries)
• Error context from failed attempt is injected into retry prompt
• Disk registry at ~/.skimpyclaw/logs/subagent-runs.jsonl (JSONL, task lifecycle events)

File locking

When multiple subagents write files concurrently, src/file-lock.ts provides in-memory locks:

• 30-second acquisition timeout
• 60-second stale lock detection
• Write tool acquires lock automatically when lockTaskId is present in context

Monitoring

/tasks          # list recent subagent tasks
/cancel <id>    # cancel a running task
/status         # shows active, running, pending counts + recent completed/failed

Flow