Subagents
Subagents of a Claude Code session appear in a panel in the thread; its buttons work in one-machine mode only
A Claude Code session can start subagents, in the foreground or in the background. Codex sessions have no subagents.
Panel
The panel is one Slack message, updated in place; the turn’s text continues in a new message under it. Its header counts the subagents running, done, failed and stopped. Each subagent has one row:
| Part | Content |
|---|---|
| Icon | ⏳ running, ✅ done, ❌ failed, ⏹ stopped |
| Name and type | The subagent’s name and agent type; “background” if it runs in the background |
| Activity | What it is doing now, or the first line of its result once finished |
| Counters | Tool calls, tokens, elapsed time |
The panel shows the latest 45 subagents. It keeps updating after its turn ends while background subagents run.
Buttons
| Button | Shown on | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Stop | A running row | Stops that subagent. |
| Result | A finished row with a result | Opens the result in a modal (first 11,900 characters). |
- The buttons work in one-machine mode only. In a team install a click does nothing: use
!stopto stop the turn, and ask the agent in the thread for a subagent’s result. - After the process restarts, the buttons on earlier panels do nothing.
Idle exit and the API
The idle exit waits while a subagent runs: the 2 hours count from the end of the last one.
The same subagents are listed over the API; see Subagents.