Subagent

A helper agent sent off by a main agent to do one bounded job — "look this up," "check that" — which reports back and then disappears. The main agent holds the big picture; the helper keeps its nose in its own task.

Sending an apprentice to the merchant. They don't need to know what the finished kitchen looks like. They need the list, and they come back with what's on it.

Why it matters: this is how you get round the context window — the limit on how much an AI can hold in mind at once. Load one AI with an entire job and it starts forgetting the beginning by the time it reaches the end. Split the job and each helper works with a clean, small head containing only its own task. Which makes this delegation, not merely doing several things at once.

Related: Context window · Orchestration