---
title: "Subagents"
canonical: "https://canmyagentuse.com/features/subagents"
contentKind: "feature"
locale: "en"
description: "Compare delegation, nesting, concurrency, context isolation, model choice, permissions, lifecycle control, and result handoff independently."
llmSummary: "Subagents are a family of separate claims covering delegation, nesting, concurrency, context isolation, model choice, tool and write permissions, approvals, lifecycle control, and result handoff."
publishedAt: "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z"
updatedAt: "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z"
verifiedAt: null
tags: ["runtime","subagents","delegation","permissions"]
---

# Subagents

Subagents are a family of separate claims covering delegation, nesting, concurrency, context isolation, model choice, tool and write permissions, approvals, lifecycle control, and result handoff.

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

Terminology basis: Catalog grouping. This organizes related compatibility questions and is not itself a support claim.

A harness may delegate one bounded task while preventing parallel work, nested delegation, model selection, MCP access, project writes, or independent approvals. It may return only a text summary even when the child produced files or structured artifacts. The family rollup keeps those boundaries visible instead of promoting one successful child task into a blanket “multi-agent” claim.

Useful evidence records who can create a child, how much context it inherits, whether children share mutable state, concurrency and nesting limits, selectable models, available tools, approval ownership, cancellation and inspection controls, and how results return to the parent.

## Atomic capabilities

- [Concurrent subagents](/features/subagent-concurrency.md) — Run multiple child-agent tasks concurrently with explicit queue and fan-out limits.
- [Nested subagents](/features/nested-subagents.md) — Allow a child agent to delegate further work to another child agent.
- [Per-subagent model selection](/features/subagent-model-selection.md) — Choose or constrain each child agent's model independently of the parent.
- [Subagent context](/features/subagent-context-isolation.md) — Define which conversation, instructions, files, memory, and tools a child receives.
- [Subagent delegation](/features/subagent-delegation.md) — Delegate a bounded task to another agent process.
- [Subagent management](/features/subagent-lifecycle-controls.md) — List, inspect, and control child-agent tasks.
- [Subagent MCP access](/features/subagent-mcp-access.md) — Allow a child agent to use MCP tools or declare its own MCP servers.
- [Subagent permissions](/features/subagent-approval-boundaries.md) — Control child-agent tools, inherited permissions, and approval behavior.
- [Subagent results](/features/subagent-result-handoff.md) — Return a child agent's findings or work to the parent.
- [Subagent write access](/features/subagent-write-access.md) — Allow a child agent to create or modify project files.

## Current family progress by product

Family support is derived from atomic child records. No umbrella compatibility value is authored.

- [ChatGPT](/harnesses/chatgpt-web.md): 5/10 supported or partial; 5/10 reviewed; yes 3, partial 2, no 0, unknown 5
- [Claude](/harnesses/claude-web.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Gemini](/harnesses/gemini-web.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Copilot](/harnesses/copilot-web.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Grok](/harnesses/grok-web.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Grok Bot](/harnesses/grok-bot-desktop.md): 2/10 supported or partial; 2/10 reviewed; yes 1, partial 1, no 0, unknown 8
- [Perplexity](/harnesses/perplexity-web.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Le Chat](/harnesses/le-chat.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Devin](/harnesses/devin-web.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Replit Agent](/harnesses/replit-agent.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [ChatGPT](/harnesses/chatgpt-desktop.md): 6/10 supported or partial; 6/10 reviewed; yes 5, partial 1, no 0, unknown 4
- [Claude](/harnesses/claude-desktop.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Cursor](/harnesses/cursor.md): 5/10 supported or partial; 5/10 reviewed; yes 5, partial 0, no 0, unknown 5
- [OpenWork Desktop](/harnesses/openwork-desktop.md): 1/10 supported or partial; 1/10 reviewed; yes 1, partial 0, no 0, unknown 9
- [Copilot Chat](/harnesses/vscode-copilot.md): 10/10 supported or partial; 10/10 reviewed; yes 8, partial 2, no 0, unknown 0
- [Chrome WebMCP origin trial](/harnesses/chrome-webmcp-preview.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Windsurf](/harnesses/windsurf.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Zed Agent](/harnesses/zed-agent.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Continue](/harnesses/continue.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Cline](/harnesses/cline.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [JetBrains AI](/harnesses/jetbrains-ai.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Warp](/harnesses/warp.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Claude CLI](/harnesses/claude-cli.md): 9/10 supported or partial; 10/10 reviewed; yes 8, partial 1, no 1, unknown 0
- [ChatGPT CLI](/harnesses/chatgpt-cli.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Codex CLI](/harnesses/codex-cli.md): 6/10 supported or partial; 6/10 reviewed; yes 5, partial 1, no 0, unknown 4
- [OpenCode](/harnesses/opencode.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Gemini CLI](/harnesses/gemini-cli.md): 5/10 supported or partial; 6/10 reviewed; yes 5, partial 0, no 1, unknown 4
- [Aider](/harnesses/aider.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Goose](/harnesses/goose.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10
- [Copilot CLI](/harnesses/copilot-cli.md): 5/10 supported or partial; 5/10 reviewed; yes 5, partial 0, no 0, unknown 5
- [Amp](/harnesses/amp-cli.md): 0/10 supported or partial; 0/10 reviewed; yes 0, partial 0, no 0, unknown 10