{
  "title": "Subagent management",
  "description": "List, inspect, pause, resume, cancel, or retry child-agent tasks.",
  "slug": "subagent-lifecycle-controls",
  "locale": "en",
  "seoTitle": "Subagent management compatibility — Can My Agent Use",
  "socialTitle": "Subagent management",
  "socialDescription": "Compare listing, inspection, cancellation, pause, resume, retry, and timeout behavior for child agents.",
  "llmSummary": "Subagent management covers visibility into active children and documented cancel, pause, resume, retry, or limit behavior. Each operation is recorded separately as a qualifier.",
  "audience": "Operators supervising multi-agent runs.",
  "contentKind": "feature",
  "status": "published",
  "tags": [
    "runtime",
    "subagents",
    "supervision",
    "cancellation"
  ],
  "updated": "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "published": "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "category": "runtime",
  "summary": "List, inspect, and control child-agent tasks.",
  "specLabel": "Common product term",
  "aliases": [
    "subagent cancellation",
    "child task control",
    "agent supervision"
  ],
  "capabilityKind": "atomic",
  "parent": "subagents",
  "related": [
    "subagent-concurrency",
    "background-agents"
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "highlight": false,
  "notes": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "text": "Evidence checked 2026-08-28: Claude Code lists live subagents and background tasks, supports foreground/background execution, stopping and attaching to background work, resuming a subagent by ID, and a per-subagent `maxTurns` limit. Pause and retry semantics are not fully documented."
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "text": "Evidence checked 2026-08-28: ChatGPT Work exposes read-only Active and Done child lists; local Codex lets operators inspect child threads and ask the parent to steer, stop, or close them, with CLI thread switching through /agent."
    },
    {
      "id": 3,
      "text": "Evidence checked 2026-08-28: VS Code exposes each running child, current tool, elapsed time, prompt, full tool-call details, and returned result as a persistent read-only child chat; each child invocation is stateless and cannot receive follow-up messages."
    }
  ],
  "issues": [],
  "resources": [
    {
      "title": "Methodology",
      "href": "/methodology",
      "kind": "note"
    },
    {
      "id": "anthropic-claude-code-subagents",
      "title": "Anthropic — Create custom subagents",
      "href": "https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "Anthropic",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28",
      "locator": "Run subagents in foreground or background; resume subagents; maxTurns"
    },
    {
      "id": "anthropic-claude-code-parallel-agents",
      "title": "Anthropic — Run agents in parallel",
      "href": "https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agents",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "Anthropic",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28",
      "locator": "Check on running work"
    },
    {
      "id": "openai-subagents",
      "title": "OpenAI — Subagents in ChatGPT and Codex",
      "href": "https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/agent-configuration/subagents",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "OpenAI",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28"
    },
    {
      "id": "vscode-subagents",
      "title": "Visual Studio Code — Subagents in Visual Studio Code",
      "href": "https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agents/run/subagents",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "Microsoft",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28",
      "locator": "What you see in chat"
    }
  ],
  "support": [
    {
      "harness": "chatgpt-web",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "partial",
          "noteIds": [
            2
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "hosted-observation",
            "revision": "2026-08-28 ChatGPT Work web documentation observation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "hosted-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "Active and Done lists and completed-result inspection are documented; the web sidebar cannot stop or steer an individual child"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "openai-subagents",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "chatgpt-desktop",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "partial",
          "noteIds": [
            2
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current ChatGPT desktop documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "child threads are inspectable and the operator can ask Codex to steer, stop, or close them; pause, retry, deadlines, and priority are not established"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "openai-subagents",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "codex-cli",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "partial",
          "noteIds": [
            2
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current Codex CLI documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "/agent switches among active threads and Codex accepts steer, stop, and close requests; pause, retry, deadlines, and priority are not established"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "openai-subagents",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "claude-cli",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "partial",
          "noteIds": [
            1
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current Claude Code subagent and parallel-agent documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "list, inspect, background, attach, stop, resume, and maximum-turn controls are documented; a general pause operation and explicit retry contract are not established"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "anthropic-claude-code-subagents",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            },
            {
              "resourceId": "anthropic-claude-code-parallel-agents",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "vscode-copilot",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "partial",
          "noteIds": [
            3
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current VS Code subagent documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "live inspection and persistent read-only child records are documented; follow-up, resume, pause, retry, timeout, and cancellation controls are not established"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "vscode-subagents",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "html": "/features/subagent-lifecycle-controls",
  "markdown": "/features/subagent-lifecycle-controls.md",
  "json": "/api/v1/features/subagent-lifecycle-controls.json",
  "body": "This row tracks supervision of child-agent executions after delegation. At minimum, evidence should show how active and queued children are identified and whether cancellation propagates to their tools and descendants.\n\nRecord pause, resume, retry, deadline, timeout, priority, log inspection, partial-result recovery, and orphan cleanup separately. A UI that hides a child after cancel while its tools continue running is only partial support."
}