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> I suspect these frameworks/patterns just fill up the context with unecessary junk.

That's exactly the point. Agents have their own context.

Thus, you try to leverage them by combining ad-hoc instructions for repetitive tasks (such as reviewing code or running a test checklist) and not polluting your conversation/context.

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Ah do you mean sub-agents? I do understand that if I summon a sub-agent and give it e.g. code reviewing instructions, it will not fill up the context of the main conversation. But my point is that giving the sub-agent the instruction "review this code as if you were a staff engineer" (literally those words) should cover most use cases (but I can't prove this, unfortunately).

I do think you're right that you should be cautious about writing too convoluted sub-agents.

I'd rather use more of them that are brief and specialized, than try to over-correct on having a single agent try to "remember" too many rules. Not really because the description itself will eat too much context, but because having the sub-agent work for too long will accumulate too much context and dilute your initial instructions anyway.

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