Use before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation.
Use when facing 2+ independent tasks that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies
Use when working with Docker containers — debugging container failures, writing Dockerfiles, docker-compose for integration tests, image optimization, or deploying containerized applications
Use when you have a written implementation plan to execute in a separate session with review checkpoints
Use when you need parallel, read-only exploration with the agent tool (Scout fan-out)
Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes
Use when implementing any feature or bugfix, before writing implementation code
Use when you have a spec or requirements for a multi-step task, before touching code