Multi-agent orchestration
One conversation has one desk. Hand the digging to a helper with its own desk, and keep the judgement calls for yourself.
“People say: I want ten agents, research everything on the web. Then twenty pages come back, and it is how on earth do you read that?” More helpers is not the win.
Drawn from Introduction to Subagents and How we built our multi-agent research system, both by the Anthropic team.
A brief for a helper is still a prompt, so get that right first: How to Prompt →
The desk
Know what actually fills up
Every message, file and search lands in one place, and that place is finite.
Fill it and the brief you opened with slides off the edge.
- What is on the desk? Everything you sent, plus everything it read back.
- What happens when it fills? It loses the thread you started with.
- When does it bite? On the long jobs, where you need it most.
A helper gets its own desk. In Claude Code a subagent runs in its own context window, with its own tool access, and hands back only the summary.
The brief
Brief a helper like a hire
A helper knows only what is in the brief. It cannot read the room, and it will not come back to ask.
A good one carries four things.
- What is the job, in plain words?
- What comes back, and in what shape?
- What should it flag rather than quietly work around?
- What is it allowed to touch?
“Look into our competitors” becomes “research our three closest competitors, return a one-page summary and five findings, each with a source”. Name the deliverable or you get the play-by-play.
Keep or delegate
Sort every task with one question
Does the middle matter? Keep it.
Only the answer? Delegate it.
- Want the answer, not the journey? Delegate it.
- Does each step depend on the last? Keep it.
- Need to react as it goes? Keep it.
- A send, a spend, anything final? Keep it.
Scan twenty competitor sites: delegate. Draft the reply to a tense client email: keep. In short, delegate the digging and keep the judgement calls.
The cost
Know what you give up
Helpers are neither free nor transparent.
From a Claude Code helper only the summary comes back, so the journey is gone.
- Could you catch this answer if it were wrong?
- Did you ask for sources, or only for confidence?
- Is this job worth the extra spend, honestly?
- Does the work split cleanly, or does every part need the same context?
Anthropic’s 2025 write-up put a lead agent with helpers 90.2% ahead of a single agent on its internal research eval, and multi-agent systems at about 15 times the tokens of a chat.
Product details read 17 September 2026: subagents in Claude Code and Research on paid Claude plans.
Your first delegation brief
Pick a real question where the digging is the work: a market you are weighing, three competitors, a prospect.
- 1
Say what the job is. One line. Who you are, and the single question you want answered.
- 2
Name the shape of the answer. A one-page summary, five findings, each with a source you can open.
- 3
Ask it to flag, not to guess. Say “not found” rather than invent, and list whatever it could not reach.
- 4
Check the sources before you use it. You never saw the working. That is what the clean desk cost you.
Rewriting the same brief every week? Save it once as a skill → and stop retyping it.
How many helpers, really
Start at the first. Move right only when the work genuinely makes you.
Solo
one conversation- It works, checks itself, repeats.
- Where most jobs should stay.
Maker and checker
one does, one grades- For work that needs taste.
- Nobody marks their own homework.
Manager and helpers
a team at once- For jobs that split cleanly.
- The most ways to go wrong.
When I run a team overnight I watch it on a small dashboard that just reads the run’s own telemetry off disk: one ring per helper, its context window filling.
- The desk: one conversation, one finite space. Full means forgetful.
- The brief: the job, the shape, what to flag, what it may touch.
- Keep or delegate: does the middle matter? Keep it. Only the answer? Delegate it.
- The cost: far more spend, and you never see the working.
This week: write one brief with all four parts, run it, then check its sources yourself. Delegate the task, never the responsibility.
Save the brief you keep rewriting: Skills → Want to command the helpers and watch them work? Claude Code →
Do it with someone. Everything here is free and you can run it alone. If you would rather work through it with me, one to one, book a free 30-minute chat. No pitch.