/spawn

/spawn

Purpose

Launch background tasks for parallel execution. Enables concurrent work on independent tasks with result aggregation.

Usage

/spawn "[task description]"
/spawn [operation]

Operations

Launch Task

Start a new background task:

/spawn "[task description]"

Process:

1. Analyze task for parallelizability
2. Launch subagent with task
3. Return task ID for tracking
4. Continue main conversation

Output:

Spawned: Task #1
- Description: Research authentication patterns
- Status: Running
- Agent: researcher

Continue working. Use `/spawn --list` to check status.

List Tasks

Show running and completed tasks:

/spawn --list

Output:

## Active Tasks

| ID | Description | Status | Duration |
|----|-------------|--------|----------|
| #1 | Research auth patterns | Running | 2m |
| #2 | Analyze security | Complete | 5m |

## Completed Tasks (last hour)
| #2 | Analyze security | ✅ Complete | Results ready |

Collect Results

Gather results from completed tasks:

/spawn --collect

Output:

## Collected Results

### Task #1: Research auth patterns
**Status**: Complete
**Findings**:
- Pattern A: JWT with refresh tokens
- Pattern B: Session-based with Redis
- Recommendation: JWT for stateless API

### Task #2: Analyze security
**Status**: Complete
**Findings**:
- 2 high-priority issues found
- See detailed report below

Cancel Task

Stop a running task:

/spawn --cancel [id]

Task Types

Type	Best For	Agent Used
Research	Information gathering	researcher
Analysis	Code analysis	scout
Review	Code review	code-reviewer
Test	Test generation	tester
Scan	Security scanning	security-auditor

Flags

Flag	Description
--list	Show all tasks
--collect	Gather completed results
--cancel [id]	Cancel running task
--wait	Wait for all tasks to complete
--agent=[type]	Specify agent type
--priority=[high|normal]	Task priority

Examples

# Spawn research task
/spawn "Research OAuth2 best practices"

# Spawn analysis with specific agent
/spawn "Analyze user service for performance" --agent=scout

# Spawn security review
/spawn "Review security of auth module" --agent=security-auditor

# Check task status
/spawn --list

# Collect all results
/spawn --collect

# Wait for all tasks to complete
/spawn --wait

# Cancel a task
/spawn --cancel 1

Parallel Workflows

Research Phase

# Launch multiple research tasks
/spawn "Research authentication approaches"
/spawn "Analyze current auth implementation"
/spawn "Review competitor auth patterns"

# Continue other work...

# Wait for all to complete
/spawn --wait

# Collect and synthesize
/spawn --collect

Multi-File Review

# Review different modules in parallel
/spawn "Review src/auth/ for security"
/spawn "Review src/api/ for performance"
/spawn "Review src/db/ for SQL injection"

# Collect findings
/spawn --collect

# Address issues

Comprehensive Analysis

# Multiple analysis tasks
/spawn "Analyze dependencies for vulnerabilities"
/spawn "Check code coverage gaps"
/spawn "Find performance bottlenecks"

/spawn --collect

Best Practices

1. Independent Tasks: Only spawn truly independent work that doesn’t depend on other tasks
2. Clear Descriptions: Specific task descriptions get better results
3. Regular Collection: Don’t let results pile up unchecked
4. Resource Awareness: Don’t spawn too many concurrent tasks (3-5 is usually optimal)

Use Cases

Feature Planning

# Parallel research before implementation
/spawn "Research state management libraries"
/spawn "Analyze existing state handling code"
/spawn "Find examples of similar features"

/spawn --collect
# Make informed decision based on all research

Code Quality Audit

# Audit different aspects simultaneously
/spawn "Check for security vulnerabilities"
/spawn "Identify performance issues"
/spawn "Find code duplication"
/spawn "Check test coverage gaps"

/spawn --collect

Documentation Tasks

# Generate docs for multiple modules
/spawn "Document API endpoints"
/spawn "Generate type documentation"
/spawn "Create usage examples"

/spawn --collect

Limitations

• Tasks cannot communicate with each other
• Results are collected, not streamed
• Heavy tasks may take time to complete
• Some tasks benefit from sequential execution (e.g., dependent work)
• Spawned tasks use additional API tokens

Combines With

• /mode orchestration - Manages multiple spawned tasks
• /plan - Plan tasks, then spawn parallel execution
• /checkpoint - Save state before spawning tasks

Related Commands

• /status - Check project status
• /load - Load components for tasks