Choose when a subagent helps

A subagent is worth the startup cost when its separate context keeps a large, independent task out of the parent conversation.

A subagent starts with a clean context and returns its final result to the parent. Use one for long exploration, independent verification or work that can run in parallel. Cursor has built-in Explore, Bash and browser subagents for codebase searches, command output and browser automation through MCPModel Context Protocol. A standard that lets an AI agent pull in context from outside the repo, like Jira tickets or internal docs. Press Enter for the full definition.. A foreground subagent blocks until it returns. A background subagent lets the parent continue and writes its output under ~/.cursor/subagents/. Project subagents live in .cursor/agents/*.md and can set description, model, readonly and is_background in frontmatter. Subagents share the parent checkout unless you ask for isolated project copies, so parallel writers can overwrite each other. A short single-purpose action usually belongs in a Skill instead.