Claude Sub-Agent Roster Designer
Turn a single overloaded Claude agent into a routed team of specialized Sonnet-tier sub-agents supervised by an Opus-tier planner.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
Splitting work across multiple agents can definitely help with performance and cost. You'd need to think about what different roles your system needs - like research, writing, monitoring, maybe coordination. Then you could run them in parallel when possible. Each agent would need its own prompt defining its job. It gets complicated fast though with handoff logic and keeping track of results. You might want to explore different model sizes too for cost optimization.
SUB-AGENT ROSTER DESIGN (Suggested 4-agent split) PLANNER AGENT (Opus tier) → Role: Route incoming requests to specialists → Process: Analyze user intent, decompose into tasks, dispatch in parallel → Skills: None (orchestration only) → Monthly cost: 15 USD base → Latency: 2-4sec planning overhead RESEARCHER AGENT (Sonnet tier) → Role: Gather context, validate facts, fetch references → Process: Web search, document parsing, source credibility scoring → Skills: WebFetch, WebSearch, ReportGeneration → Monthly cost: 3-5 USD (billed per query) → Success metric: Sources cited, no hallucinations DRAFT AGENT (Sonnet tier) → Role: Compose outputs (blog, email, social, specs) → Process: Template selection, tone matching, revision cycles → Skills: BrandVoice, ContentGeneration, MultichannelFormatting → Monthly cost: 4-7 USD → Success metric: Copy approval rate 85%+ MONITOR AGENT (Haiku tier) → Role: Track deadlines, flag delays, escalate blockers → Process: Polling agent status every 30sec, timeout detection, SLA tracking → Skills: StatusAggregation, SlackNotifications, ErrorRecovery → Monthly cost: 0.5-1 USD → Success metric: No missed handoffs HANDOFF PROTOCOL: 1. Planner sends task to Researcher with context window limit (8K tokens) 2. Researcher returns findings; Planner routes to Drafters in parallel 3. Drafters respond with output; Planner does final QA 4. Monitor watches entire flow; escalates if >2min latency 5. Each agent has 3-retry buffer for API rate limits COST IMPACT: → Solo agent (current): 45 USD/month → Roster (proposed): 23-30 USD/month (-35% cost) → Throughput gain: 3x parallel execution → Context bloat reduced 60%
About this skill
name: claude-subagent-roster description: Turn a single overloaded Claude agent into a routed team of specialized Sonnet-tier sub-agents supervised by an Opus-tier planner. Use when working on claude sub-agent roster designer.
Claude Sub-Agent Roster Designer
When one agent has to research, write, monitor, and reply, it thrashes and burns tokens. This skill helps you name the jobs, spin up a sub-agent per job with the right model tier, and write the delegation prompt so the main agent hands off cleanly. Result: parallel execution, lower spend, and clearer logs. Use once your solo agent starts hitting rate limits or context bloat.
What you get
- Sub-agent naming convention
- Per-role model recommendation (planner vs worker)
- Skill assignment matrix
- Delegation prompt template
- Cost-tracking checklist
- Handoff verification tests
Customize your output
- Number of sub-agents: 2, 3, 5, 7
- Recurring jobs to split off: research, drafting, monitoring, bookkeeping, custom
- Planner model: Opus, Fable 5
- Worker model: Sonnet, Haiku
- Per-agent skill grants: default, custom
- Handoff style: async, synchronous
Example output
'Created 3 sub-agents: Echo (Sonnet, social listening), Forge (Sonnet, drafting), Ledger (Sonnet, bookkeeping). Main agent Atlas (Opus) routes brand mention report to Echo then Forge in parallel. Est. monthly spend reduction 55 percent.'
Best for
Anyone already running a single Claude/OpenClaude agent hitting rate limits, context bloat, or bills that are too high.
Note: High confidence. Under-documented pattern with a big cost-and-quality upside.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: claude-subagent-roster
description: Use this skill when an overloaded single agent needs splitting into a routed team of specialized sub-agents supervised by a planning agent.
version: 1.0.0
category: AI Systems
author: AgentVolt
license: proprietary
tags:
- ai-systems
- p4
---
# Claude Sub-Agent Roster Designer
Turns one agent doing everything into a named roster of specialized sub-agents, each sized to the right model tier, with clean delegation prompts so handoffs don't leak context.
## When to use
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