---
title: "Use subagents for research that returns a short summary | Ian Nuttall"
description: "Use subagents for tasks needing context"
canonical: "https://ian.is/post/subagent-context-summaries"
language: "en"
---

# Use subagents for research that returns a short summary

Aug 2025 / 54,303 views / [via X](https://x.com/iannuttall/status/1952100237176131960)

Claude Code pro tip:

Use subagents for tasks that need a lot of context but can return a relatively short summary to the main thread.

Examples:

\- tracing how features work
\- deep research (GitHub repos, links etc)
\- figuring out tricky bugs
\- planning out new features

[![](https://ian.is/media/tweets/1952026329760817483/20946236/235e26f6847aad192447edc2c973cc250ce6d0dc93033454d425864bd41aea09.jpg)**Adam Wolff**@dmwlff](https://x.com/dmwlff)

> @jasonzhou1993 @tailwindcss @vercel @Netlify @supabase Don't anthropomorphize subagents. Use them to organize your prompts and elide context.
>
> Subagents are best when they can do looks of work but then provide small amounts of information back to the main conversation thread.

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