Agent System

Claude Code has 6 built-in agent types. Each is purpose-built with a specific model, tool set, and permission mode. Sub-agents are spawned automatically based on the task.

6 agent types 3 different models used 34M+ spawns/week at scale

i Explore and Plan agents omit CLAUDE.md

The Explore and Plan agents deliberately skip loading CLAUDE.md and git status from context. This saves ~5–15 Gtok/week at 34M+ spawns. If you need these agents to follow your project conventions, include the relevant rules in your prompts directly.

General-Purpose

The default workhorse

Model Inherits from parent

Tools All tools (*)

Use case

Complex research, multi-step search, tasks that require the full tool set

· No tool restrictions
· Model inherits from parent session
· Used when no specialized agent fits

Explore

Read-only codebase explorer

Model Haiku (external) / Inherits (internal)

Tools All except Agent, Edit, Write, ExitPlanMode, NotebookEdit

Use case

Codebase searches, quick lookups, exploring file structure

× Cannot modify files. Cannot spawn sub-agents.

· Uses cheaper Haiku model for external users
· Minimum 3 queries enforced before returning results
· Omits CLAUDE.md from context to save tokens
· Saves ~5–15 Gtok/week at 34M+ spawns

Plan

Architecture and strategy designer

Model Inherits from parent

Tools Read-only (no Edit, Write, Agent, ExitPlanMode)

Use case

Design implementation strategy, identify critical files, consider trade-offs

× Cannot modify files.

· Required output: list of 3–5 critical files for implementation
· Omits CLAUDE.md and git status from context
· Focuses purely on design decisions

Verification

Automated quality gate

Model Inherits from parent

Tools Read-only verification tools

Permission Mode Always runs in background

Use case

Verify implementations are correct after code changes

· Always runs in the background (non-blocking)
· Displays in red in the terminal to stand out
· Must end with one of: VERDICT: PASS, VERDICT: FAIL, or VERDICT: PARTIAL
· Useful as an automated quality gate in CI/CD

Claude Code Guide

Documentation assistant

Model Haiku

Tools Glob, Grep, Read, WebFetch, WebSearch

Permission Mode dontAsk (auto-denies prompts)

Use case

Answer questions about Claude Code features, API, CLI, MCP servers

· Uses cheaper Haiku model
· Auto-denies permission prompts (dontAsk mode)
· Sources: official Claude Code and Anthropic API docs
· Specialized for documentation lookups only

Status Line Setup

Config file editor

Model Sonnet

Tools Read and Edit only

Use case

Configure the Claude Code terminal status line setting

· Extremely restricted tool set: only Read + Edit
· Cannot run shell commands or access the web
· Focused single-purpose agent