---
title: "Concurrent subagents"
canonical: "https://canmyagentuse.com/features/subagent-concurrency"
contentKind: "feature"
locale: "en"
description: "Run more than one child-agent task at the same time with documented concurrency and queue limits."
llmSummary: "Concurrent subagents means multiple child-agent tasks can overlap in time; sequential delegation, tool-call parallelism, and background shell processes are separate behaviors."
publishedAt: "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z"
updatedAt: "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z"
verifiedAt: "2026-08-28"
tags: ["runtime","subagents","concurrency","delegation"]
---

# Concurrent subagents

Concurrent subagents means multiple child-agent tasks can overlap in time; sequential delegation, tool-call parallelism, and background shell processes are separate behaviors.

- HTML: https://canmyagentuse.com/features/subagent-concurrency
- JSON: https://canmyagentuse.com/api/v1/features/subagent-concurrency.json
- Markdown: https://canmyagentuse.com/features/subagent-concurrency.md

Terminology basis: **Common product term** — https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agents.

## Current support at a glance

Concurrent subagents: 7 supported, 0 partial, 0 unsupported, 24 unreviewed across 31 cataloged products.

- Reviewed current products: 7 of 31
- Supported: 7
- Partial: 0
- Unsupported: 0
- Unreviewed: 24
- Not applicable: 0

Unknown or unreviewed means insufficient published evidence; it does not mean unsupported.

This row requires two or more child-agent executions whose active intervals overlap. Sequential delegation, concurrent ordinary tool calls, and detached shell commands do not establish concurrent subagents.

Evidence should record maximum active and queued children, nesting effects, per-plan or per-organization quotas, scheduling order, cancellation behavior, rate-limit sharing, and whether concurrent children can safely write to the same workspace. Tests should detect accidental serialization as well as unsafe shared-state races.

## Catalog context

- Category: [runtime](/categories/runtime.md)
- Terminology basis: Common product term
- Aliases: parallel subagents, agent fan-out, concurrent child agents
- Family: [Subagents](/features/subagents.md)
- Siblings: [Nested subagents](/features/nested-subagents.md), [Per-subagent model selection](/features/subagent-model-selection.md), [Subagent context](/features/subagent-context-isolation.md), [Subagent delegation](/features/subagent-delegation.md), [Subagent management](/features/subagent-lifecycle-controls.md), [Subagent MCP access](/features/subagent-mcp-access.md), [Subagent permissions](/features/subagent-approval-boundaries.md), [Subagent results](/features/subagent-result-handoff.md), [Subagent write access](/features/subagent-write-access.md)

## Compatibility assertions

Unknown means insufficient published evidence; it does not mean unsupported.

### ChatGPT (web)

- Harness: [ChatGPT](/harnesses/chatgpt-web.md)
- current: **Supported**
  - Target: hosted-observation — 2026-08-28 ChatGPT Work web documentation observation; observed 2026-08-28
  - Environment: hosted-default
  - Constraint (plan): available to eligible accounts; the reviewed page establishes parallel execution but does not publish a numeric web fan-out cap
  - Evidence: [OpenAI — Subagents in ChatGPT and Codex](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/agent-configuration/subagents) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Qualification note 2: Evidence checked 2026-08-28: ChatGPT Work and local Codex can run specialized agents in parallel; local Codex configuration exposes a maximum concurrent spawned-thread setting.
- preview: **Unknown**

### Claude (web)

- Harness: [Claude](/harnesses/claude-web.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Gemini (web)

- Harness: [Gemini](/harnesses/gemini-web.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Copilot (web)

- Harness: [Copilot](/harnesses/copilot-web.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Grok (web)

- Harness: [Grok](/harnesses/grok-web.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Grok Bot (desktop)

- Harness: [Grok Bot](/harnesses/grok-bot-desktop.md)
- current: **Unknown**

### Perplexity (web)

- Harness: [Perplexity](/harnesses/perplexity-web.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Le Chat (web)

- Harness: [Le Chat](/harnesses/le-chat.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Devin (web)

- Harness: [Devin](/harnesses/devin-web.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Replit Agent (web)

- Harness: [Replit Agent](/harnesses/replit-agent.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### ChatGPT (desktop)

- Harness: [ChatGPT](/harnesses/chatgpt-desktop.md)
- current: **Supported**
  - Target: dated-documentation — current ChatGPT desktop documentation; observed 2026-08-28
  - Environment: local-default
  - Constraint (runtime): local Codex supports parallel child threads; agents.max_concurrent_threads_per_session caps spawned threads and excludes the primary thread
  - Evidence: [OpenAI — Subagents in ChatGPT and Codex](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/agent-configuration/subagents) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Qualification note 2: Evidence checked 2026-08-28: ChatGPT Work and local Codex can run specialized agents in parallel; local Codex configuration exposes a maximum concurrent spawned-thread setting.
- preview: **Unknown**

### Claude (desktop)

- Harness: [Claude](/harnesses/claude-desktop.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Cursor (desktop)

- Harness: [Cursor](/harnesses/cursor.md)
- current: **Supported**
  - Target: dated-documentation — current Cursor subagent documentation; observed 2026-08-28
  - Environment: local-default
  - Constraint (runtime): multiple Task calls can start simultaneously; shared-checkout writers can collide unless worktree or cloud isolation is requested
  - Evidence: [Cursor — Subagents](https://cursor.com/docs/subagents) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Qualification note 3: Evidence checked 2026-08-28: Cursor can send multiple Task calls in one parent turn so subagents run simultaneously; isolated worktrees or cloud environments are available for parallel writers.
- preview: **Unknown**

### OpenWork Desktop (desktop)

- Harness: [OpenWork Desktop](/harnesses/openwork-desktop.md)
- current: **Unknown**

### Copilot Chat (desktop)

- Harness: [Copilot Chat](/harnesses/vscode-copilot.md)
- current: **Supported**
  - Target: dated-documentation — current VS Code subagent documentation; observed 2026-08-28
  - Environment: local-default
  - Constraint (host-role): claim is scoped to GitHub Copilot's local VS Code agent surface; published documentation does not state a fixed maximum parallel-child count
  - Evidence: [Visual Studio Code — Subagents in Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agents/run/subagents) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Qualification note 5: Evidence checked 2026-08-28: VS Code explicitly documents spawning multiple subagents in parallel and provides examples that run several specialized reviewers concurrently.
- preview: **Unknown**

### Chrome WebMCP origin trial (desktop)

- Harness: [Chrome WebMCP origin trial](/harnesses/chrome-webmcp-preview.md)
- current: **Unknown**

### Windsurf (desktop)

- Harness: [Windsurf](/harnesses/windsurf.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Zed Agent (desktop)

- Harness: [Zed Agent](/harnesses/zed-agent.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Continue (desktop)

- Harness: [Continue](/harnesses/continue.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Cline (desktop)

- Harness: [Cline](/harnesses/cline.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### JetBrains AI (desktop)

- Harness: [JetBrains AI](/harnesses/jetbrains-ai.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Warp (desktop)

- Harness: [Warp](/harnesses/warp.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Claude CLI (cli)

- Harness: [Claude CLI](/harnesses/claude-cli.md)
- current: **Supported**
  - Target: dated-documentation — current Claude Code parallel-agent documentation; observed 2026-08-28
  - Environment: local-default
  - Constraint (runtime): running several subagents at once multiplies token use and shares the account's rate limits
  - Evidence: [Anthropic — Run agents in parallel](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agents) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Evidence: [Anthropic — Create custom subagents](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Qualification note 1: Evidence checked 2026-08-28: Claude Code documents multiple foreground or background subagents, describes parallel subagent work, and exposes live subagents in the `/agents` panel and background work in `/tasks`.
- preview: **Unknown**

### ChatGPT CLI (cli)

- Harness: [ChatGPT CLI](/harnesses/chatgpt-cli.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Codex CLI (cli)

- Harness: [Codex CLI](/harnesses/codex-cli.md)
- current: **Supported**
  - Target: dated-documentation — current Codex CLI documentation; observed 2026-08-28
  - Environment: local-default
  - Constraint (runtime): agents.max_concurrent_threads_per_session caps spawned threads and excludes the primary; leaving it unset delegates the default to Codex
  - Evidence: [OpenAI — Subagents in ChatGPT and Codex](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/agent-configuration/subagents) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Qualification note 2: Evidence checked 2026-08-28: ChatGPT Work and local Codex can run specialized agents in parallel; local Codex configuration exposes a maximum concurrent spawned-thread setting.
- preview: **Unknown**

### OpenCode (cli)

- Harness: [OpenCode](/harnesses/opencode.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Gemini CLI (cli)

- Harness: [Gemini CLI](/harnesses/gemini-cli.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Aider (cli)

- Harness: [Aider](/harnesses/aider.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Goose (cli)

- Harness: [Goose](/harnesses/goose.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**

### Copilot CLI (cli)

- Harness: [Copilot CLI](/harnesses/copilot-cli.md)
- current: **Supported**
  - Target: dated-documentation — current GitHub Copilot CLI documentation; observed 2026-08-28
  - Environment: local-default
  - Constraint (plan): default concurrent limits are 2 Free/Education, 4 Pro/Pro+, 8 Max, 16 Business, and 32 Enterprise; usage-based billing can configure up to 32
  - Evidence: [GitHub — Copilot CLI command reference](https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/copilot-cli-reference/cli-command-reference) — documented; observed 2026-08-28
  - Qualification note 4: Evidence checked 2026-08-28: GitHub Copilot CLI documents plan-based concurrent-subagent limits from 2 to 32 and a usage-billing override capped at 32.
- preview: **Unknown**

### Amp (cli)

- Harness: [Amp](/harnesses/amp-cli.md)
- current: **Unknown**
- preview: **Unknown**