Parallel Agents Skill for Claude

by parcadei

Parallel Agent Orchestration

816 tokens

context cost

the whole folder, loaded on every use

files

instructions only

copies elsewhere

how many repositories repackaged it

3880

stars on the repo

on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository

npx skills add https://github.com/parcadei/Continuous-Claude-v3 --skill parallel-agents

The instruction itself

12 sections, as written by the author

Parallel Agent Orchestration

When launching multiple agents in parallel, follow this pattern to avoid context bloat.

Core Principles

No TaskOutput calls - TaskOutput returns full agent output, bloating context
Run in background - Always use run_in_background: true
File-based confirmation - Agents write status to files, not return values
Append, don't overwrite - Multiple agents can write to same status file

Output Patterns

Simple Confirmation (parallel batch work)

For tasks where agents just need to confirm completion:

# Agent writes to shared status file
echo "COMPLETE: <task-name> - $(date)" >> .claude/cache/<batch-name>-status.txt

Use >> to append (not > which overwrites)
Include timestamp for ordering
One line per agent completion
Check with: cat .claude/cache/<batch-name>-status.txt

Detailed Output (research/exploration)

For tasks requiring detailed findings:

.claude/cache/agents/<task-type>/<agent-id>/
├── output.md      # Main findings
├── artifacts/     # Any generated files
└── status.txt     # Completion confirmation

Each agent gets own directory
Full output preserved for later reading
Status file still used for quick completion check

Task Prompt Template

# Task: <TASK_NAME>

## Your Mission
<clear objective>

## Output
When done, write confirmation:
\`\`\`bash
echo "COMPLETE: <identifier> - $(date)" >> .claude/cache/<batch>-status.txt
\`\`\`

Do NOT return large output. Complete work silently.

Launching Pattern

// Launch all in single message block (parallel)
Task({
  description: "Task 1",
  prompt: "...",
  subagent_type: "general-purpose",
  run_in_background: true
})
Task({
  description: "Task 2",
  prompt: "...",
  subagent_type: "general-purpose",
  run_in_background: true
})
// ... up to 15 parallel agents

Monitoring

# Check completion status
cat .claude/cache/<batch>-status.txt

# Count completions
wc -l .claude/cache/<batch>-status.txt

# Watch for updates
tail -f .claude/cache/<batch>-status.txt

Batch Size

Max 15 agents per parallel batch
Wait for batch to complete before launching next
Use status file to track which completed

DO

Use run_in_background: true always
Have agents write to status files
Use append (>>) not overwrite (>)
Give each agent clear, self-contained instructions
Include all context in prompt (agents don't share memory)

DON'T

Call TaskOutput (bloats context)
Return large outputs from agents
Launch more than 15 at once
Rely on agent return values for orchestration

Example: Provider Backfill

# Status file
.claude/cache/provider-backfill-status.txt

# Each agent appends on completion
echo "COMPLETE: anthropic - Thu Jan 2 12:34:56 2025" >> .claude/cache/provider-backfill-status.txt
echo "COMPLETE: openai - Thu Jan 2 12:35:12 2025" >> .claude/cache/provider-backfill-status.txt

Check progress:

cat .claude/cache/provider-backfill-status.txt
# COMPLETE: anthropic - Thu Jan 2 12:34:56 2025
# COMPLETE: openai - Thu Jan 2 12:35:12 2025

Other skills for the same job

different authors, same section of the catalogue

Skill Creator

by anthropics

vendor ×10

Create new skills, modify and improve existing skills, and measure skill performance. Use when users want to create a skill from scratch, edit, or optimize an existing skill, run evals to test a skill, benchmark skill performance with variance analysis, or optimize a skill's description for better triggering accuracy.

Guide for creating effective skills. This skill should be used when users want to create a new skill (or update an existing skill) that extends Claude's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, or tool integrations.

Replace with description of the skill and when Claude should use it.

35 tokens

Dispatching Parallel Agents

by ZhanlinCui

×5

Use when facing 2+ independent tasks that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies

This skill should be used when the user wants to "create a skill", "add a skill to plugin", "write a new skill", "improve skill description", "organize skill content", or needs guidance on skill structure, progressive disclosure, or skill development best practices for Claude Code plugins.

Helps users discover and install agent skills when they ask questions like "how do I do X", "find a skill for X", "is there a skill that can...", or express interest in extending capabilities. This skill should be used when the user is looking for functionality that might exist as an installable skill.

Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment

26k tokens scripts

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take parcadei/parallel-agents from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.