Sub-agents

Spawn isolated jobs for exploration, review, and scoped edits without polluting the parent context.

Sub-agent tools (agent_spawn, agent_wait, …) are on by default. To keep a session lean, disable them in ~/.phi/config.yaml:

agents:
  enabled: false

Or toggle for the current session via the palette: settings → agents. When disabled, those tools are not registered and the model cannot spawn jobs.

Roles

Sub-agents use a role that scopes their tools:

Role	Tools	Use for
`explore`	read-only (+ allowlisted bash)	Search / map structure
`review`	read-only (+ allowlisted bash)	Diffs / checks; no edits
`worker`	full tools except nesting	Planned, independent edits

Default stays explore (read-only). Prefer worker only after the parent has a concrete plan.

Job artifacts

Sub-agent transcripts live under ~/.phi/jobs/<id>/ (meta, logs, result.md) and are not injected into the parent context — only the wait/task summary is. That keeps long explorations from burning the parent’s context window.