Claude Can Hire Helpers
Sometimes, in the middle of a task, you’ll see Claude do something new: it sends out helpers.
Claude Code can split a big job into pieces and hand each piece to a separate agent (another copy of Claude, working on its own). You’ll spot it on screen as lines mentioning an agent or a task, sometimes several running at once.
It sounds amazing. Three Claudes, working in parallel! And sometimes it is.
But there’s a catch, and it’s the same catch as the whiteboard.
Helpers Start With a Blank Whiteboard
Your main chat, the one you’ve been talking to, has a whiteboard full of everything you told it: who the site is for, the colors, what’s not now, how you like things explained.
A helper gets none of that. It starts fresh, and only knows what’s in a short brief (a few lines of instructions) that your main agent writes for it.
So helpers fill the gaps the way anyone would: with guesses. Remember the 99% rule? A helper with a three-line brief is working with maybe 3% of what you’ve said.
A helper only knows what fits in its brief. Your main agent knows the whole story.
Both Sides, Honestly
Helpers aren’t bad. They’re a tool, with real strengths and a real weakness:
| Helper agents | Your main agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Fast, several at once | One thing at a time |
| Knows your wishes | Only what’s in the brief | Everything you’ve said |
| Accuracy on your project | Lower, more guessing | Higher |
| Great for | Big searches, reading lots of files, research | Anything that depends on your taste and decisions |
| Risk | Mistakes you have to catch and redo | Slower, but closer to right the first time |
Notice the pattern:
- Research (“find the best library for this”, “look through all these files”) doesn’t need to know your taste. Helpers are great for it.
- Building your site depends on everything you’ve decided. That belongs with the agent who was there when you decided it.
You Can Choose
You’re the director, so it’s your call. If you see Claude sending helpers off to build parts of your site and you’d rather it didn’t, press Esc and say so:
Please don't use helper agents for this. Do it yourself, in this chat, so you keep everything I've told you in mind.If it’s something you always want, put it in the notebook:
Add to CLAUDE.md: don't use helper agents for building the site. Only use them for research, and tell me when you do.Love your main agent. It’s the one that’s been listening the whole time.
Try it
Next time you see Claude start helper agents, press Esc and ask it what each helper was told to do. Read the briefs, and notice what they leave out.
See an example prompt
Stop for a second. What exactly did you tell each helper agent? Show me their instructions.Then decide: let them continue, or ask Claude to do it itself.