[FEATURE] Cache read tokens from parallel subagent dispatch accumulate without upper bound

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Apr 10, 2026 by Fearvox Closed May 25, 2026

Preflight Checklist

  • [x] I have searched existing issues and this has not been reported yet
  • [x] This is a single bug report
  • [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

When dispatching parallel subagents (via the Agent tool with allowParallel: true), each subagent session re-reads the full conversation history and parent context from cache. This causes cache_read tokens to accumulate rapidly and without upper bound across parallel subagent dispatches.

Reproduction

  1. Spawn 3 parallel subagents simultaneously (each running a long task)
  2. Observe that each subagent independently re-chats the same conversation history from cache
  3. Cache read tokens accumulate multiplicatively: 3 agents × N context tokens each = 3N cache reads
  4. A 90-minute parallel subagent session can burn ~15M cache_read tokens with no user-visible benefit

Observed Symptom

Subagent 1: cache_read = X tokens
Subagent 2: cache_read = X tokens  
Subagent 3: cache_read = X tokens
Total: 3X cache_read tokens billed to parent session

The parent session is billed for cache reads that were done independently by each subagent — but subagents are supposed to be isolated. They should not be inflating the parent session's cache read token count.

Expected Behavior

Cache read tokens should either:

  1. Not bill to parent session — subagent cache reads are subagent overhead, not parent overhead
  2. Deduplicate across subagents — if multiple subagents read the same context, count it once
  3. Have a clear cap — set a maximum cache read budget per subagent dispatch to prevent runaway accumulation

Technical Notes

  • This is distinct from issue #45958 (subagent notification stall) — this is specifically about cache_read token accumulation inflating the parent session's usage metrics
  • The same pattern affects CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 parallel dispatch workflows
  • Not limited to long-running sessions; even short parallel tasks trigger multiplicative cache reads

Suggested Labels

area:agents, area:cost, enhancement

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