[BUG] subagents too slow and cost more tokens

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Aug 1, 2025 by SamPeng87 Closed Aug 15, 2025

Environment

  • Platform (select one):
  • [x] Anthropic API
  • [ ] AWS Bedrock
  • [ ] Google Vertex AI
  • [ ] Other: <!-- specify -->
  • Claude CLI version: 1.0.64
  • Operating System: macos
  • Terminal: iTerm2

Bug Description

I am unable to investigate the cause, as the agents provide no debug information to let me know. However, from the statistics, the sub-agents consume an excessive number of tokens.
For the same task, in the main task with clear clearing, it is only 2-3k tokens, at most no more than 10k. But for the sub-agents, it is 160K, 3m.

that task only writes one file, reads some files and context. The context is large, but I believe the way context is passed with the main control window must be different.

  Done (12 tool uses · 153.8k tokens · 3m 32.2s)                                                                                                                                                                                     

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