{"version":"2.1.290","anchor":"subagent-effort-can-be-lowered-by-remote-value-tengu-harmon","canonical_anchor":"subagent-effort-can-be-lowered-by-remote-value-tengu-harmon","heading":"Subagents get their own effort level and token budget","tier":"notice","area":"Subagents","scope":"individual","heads_up":false,"url":"https:\/\/changelogs.core-directive.com\/v\/2.1.290\/e\/subagent-effort-can-be-lowered-by-remote-value-tengu-harmon","release_url":"https:\/\/changelogs.core-directive.com\/v\/2.1.290","markdown":"### Subagents get their own effort level and token budget\n\nSubagents now get a computed effort level and total-token budget with a countdown reminder, and a remote value can lower their effort\n\n**Unclear.** What value applies when neither the server nor the environment variable provides one is not known.\n\n**What**\n\nA subagent is a helper Claude starts with the Agent tool to work on part of a task. When the Agent tool now starts or resumes a subagent, a new helper works out two things for it: an effort level, meaning how hard the model reasons, and a total-token budget, meaning how many tokens the subagent may spend. Claude Code already showed Claude a running count of tokens left. Subagents now get a budget and countdown of their own.\n\n- Forked subagents with a token budget get a `total_tokens_reminder` message in their prompt, and the budget is passed to the run as `totalTokensReminderBudget`. Resumed subagents carry the budget too.\n\n- Effort can be lowered by a remote value, `tengu_harmonic_riddle`, or by the environment variable `CLAUDE_CODE_HARMONIC_RIDDLE`. An environment variable is a setting passed to a program from outside it. Text names an effort level. A negative whole number steps down from the session's own effort. It only ever lowers effort, never raises it. It does not apply when the subagent has an explicit effort or its effort is already \"low\". Nothing has been read about `tengu_harmonic_riddle`.\n\n- Remote subagents are left out of this.\n\n- Usage records for a subagent launch now include the session effort, the subagent effort, `subagent_total_tokens_budget` and `subagent_budget_on_top_of_start`.\n\n- When a teammate is spawned, the result now includes its `agentId` and `resolvedModel`.\n\nThe Agent tool's description, as captured under this release, is unchanged from the release before.\n\n**Why**\n\nSubagents can now see how many tokens they have left, which can change how they pace their work. If the remote value or the environment variable is set, subagents may reason less hard than the main session.\n\n- Area: Subagents\n- Tier: You'll notice\n- Useful: 3\/5\n- Signal: 4\/5\n- Scope: individual\n- Heads-up: no"}