Subagent-Driven Development

A development workflow that assigns each task in an implementation plan to a fresh subagent and requests a code review between tasks.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps carry out plans made of mostly independent tasks, with tests and review after each task.
Why use it?
Separate agents reduce confusion between tasks, while reviews provide quality checks before the next task begins. An implementation plan is a step-by-step description of the work to be done.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/obra/superpowers-skills/subagent-driven-development
Any agent
npx skills add obra/superpowers-skills --skill subagent-driven-development
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/obra/superpowers-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 24 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,144 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00024 $0.01144
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00572
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00229
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00114

Measured yesterday against content hash 33a23679d7a7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Subagent-Driven Development scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

skills/collaboration/subagent-driven-development/SKILL.md · 189 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 189 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Subagent-Driven Development

Execute plan by dispatching fresh subagent per task, with code review after each.

Core principle: Fresh subagent per task + review between tasks = high quality, fast iteration

Overview

vs. Executing Plans (parallel session):

  • Same session (no context switch)
  • Fresh subagent per task (no context pollution)
  • Code review after each task (catch issues early)
  • Faster iteration (no human-in-loop between tasks)

When to use:

  • Staying in this session
  • Tasks are mostly independent
  • Want continuous progress with quality gates

When NOT to use:

  • Need to review plan first (use executing-plans)
  • Tasks are tightly coupled (manual execution better)
  • Plan needs revision (brainstorm first)

The Process

1. Load Plan

Read plan file, create TodoWrite with all tasks.

2. Execute Task with Subagent

For each task:

Dispatch fresh subagent:

Task tool (general-purpose):
  description: "Implement Task N: [task name]"
  prompt: |
    You are implementing Task N from [plan-file].

    Read that task carefully. Your job is to:
    1. Implement exactly what the task specifies
    2. Write tests (following TDD if task says to)
    3. Verify implementation works
    4. Commit your work
    5. Report back

    Work from: [directory]

    Report: What you implemented, what you tested, test results, files changed, any issues

Subagent reports back with summary of work.

3. Review Subagent's Work

Dispatch code-reviewer subagent:

Task tool (code-reviewer):
  Use template at skills/collaboration/requesting-code-review/code-reviewer.md

  WHAT_WAS_IMPLEMENTED: [from subagent's report]
  PLAN_OR_REQUIREMENTS: Task N from [plan-file]
  BASE_SHA: [commit before task]
  HEAD_SHA: [current commit]
  DESCRIPTION: [task summary]

Code reviewer returns: Strengths, Issues (Critical/Important/Minor), Assessment

4. Apply Review Feedback

If issues found:

  • Fix Critical issues immediately
  • Fix Important issues before next task
  • Note Minor issues

Read the full file on GitHub · 189 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 189 lines · 24 tokens per session scan A 33a23679d7a7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Subagent-Driven Development is a skill published in the GitHub repository obra/superpowers-skills (744 stars, last pushed 10mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 24 tokens to every session and 1,144 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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